


A Cord of Two Strands

by Ghostigos



Series: A Cord of Two Strands [1]
Category: Outlast (Video Games), Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asphyxiation, Borderline Personality Disorder, Canon-Typical Violence, Dissociation, Ensemble Cast, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Intrusive Thoughts, POV Second Person, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-09-23 10:06:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 80,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9651089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostigos/pseuds/Ghostigos
Summary: They gesture to themselves. "I'm your ticket to getting out of here, asshole, like it or not. So if you leave me behind, I'm not starting up the power for shit. And we can both rot in here together, got it?"You bare your teeth behind your tight frown. This kid's right, and they know it. They know this place probably better than you do; they know the kinks to living around here. You need them on your team as much as they need you on theirs."Got it," you say grudgingly. "Lead the way, then."Or: Miles finds himself in a bit of a tight squeeze and encounters someone who can help





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There really is no redeeming explanation for this crossover, outside of the fact that I pictured my two favorite characters from different games interacting, and after weeks of pondering on their possible interactions, and eventually this happened
> 
> I don't really have an excuse for myself, but I'm going to admit that I'm ultimately proud of the outcome. I always wanted Miles to have a little friend in his adventures, and I guess having a sarcastic twelve-year old will have to do
> 
> Yes, this is part of a series. And I'm not sorry
> 
> Content warnings for gore and the typical violence encountered in Outlast

Your brain is swirling with blackouts like crazy, and the sharp sting in your sides clarify that your fall wasn't soft enough to spare your ribs. You grunt with pain as you force the dizziness aside and sloppily get to your feet.

When you remember where you are, your brain short-circuits.

The first sight you see upon adjusting your vision is the glorious view of a corpse with its belly ripped open. Aside from the obvious horror, you make note that the bodies around you consist of men in officer suits. Workers of Murkoff. Doesn't seem like their profit was enough to spare them in the riots.

You remember the giant that threw you through the window.

You remember the soldier, armed with heavy equipment, with a spear through his chest, hanging him in the air like a rag doll.

_You have to get out._

Something instinctive kicks in, punching your fears into the dark corners of your brain, where it'll be sorted out momentarily. For now, you recall the soldier's dying words, that you can unlock the doors from the security control.

Alright. So it doesn't seem so bad. As long as you're on level one of this hellscape, you'll survive.

A shuffling sound in front of you has you shoving your confidence down your throat.

It was small, tiny. Not meant to be heard. A scared survivor? Or a hunter hiding from his prey? 

Your mind wanders into the tendrils of fear, yet you find adrenaline surging you forward. The sooner you find the source of the sound, the better. Or worse.

You walk towards the front desk, greeted by a deformed corpse bleeding away in his chair. It's odd how you've already become somewhat immune to the mangled bodies, despite being only trapped in here for...what? Five minutes? Ten?

The scuffling catches your eye as you notice a tiny body creep further under the desk. They freeze upon your approach, and if you listen closely, you can hear their short breaths of panic match yours. Definitely a person in a state of fear; whether or not their anxiety will trigger them attacking you or not is still up in the air.

Ignoring reason, you crouch down to their eye level. Your gaze locks with a small child.

They're wearing a patient's outfit with abnormal black socks underneath. Okay, so an insane child then. You brace yourself instinctively for an attack, but their wide eyes seem just as filled with panic and surprise as you suspect your own to be. Their short hair is frizzy and undone, as though they've been running from something, and you notice grime blemish their outfit and face.

They're the first to crack, and perk up a little upon your presence, causing you to instinctively take a tentative step backwards. This action has them narrow their eyes slightly.

When they speak, their voice is hoarse and unsure. "You're not one of them, are you?"

One of them? Your mind reels for a split second before you realize, oh. One of the doctors. _Or other patients._ The thought is eerie enough for you to visibly shake your head.

"Uh, no," you reply, and you find yourself faltering for your own voice for a split second. You didn't expect any conversation in a decrepit hellzone like this one.

This draws their attention, and their posture regains ever so slightly. They seem almost desperate to have someone not kill them immediately that you have to cringe inwardly. A child, yet another victim of Murkoff's cruel game.

_Maybe you should record this._

You fumble backwards to get your camcorder and, to your relief, it wasn't broken by your fall miraculously, thank god.

The child gets on all fours and stares at your hands holding the device, something similar to pure curiosity dancing in their eyes (they seem oddly sane enough so that if they went for your throat right now you'd be fairly surprised). "What's that for?" they ask.

"Um," you start for a second. Guilt begins to crawl unnaturally in your stomach; you were about to record this child just for the pleasure of showing the world their state of being, not for their own benefit.

You raise the camcorder to your chest and open it to check on the batteries. "It's a camcorder," you explain awkwardly. "To record things."

The child blinks. "Record what exactly?"

For lack of better terms, you gesture to the asylum, to the bloody writing on the wall behind you: _"Proclaim the gospel"_ , it announces.

"To record everything," you say. "To show...what's going on."

Realization brightens the child's eyes. "Like all the bad stuff?" they press, like they're actually interested.

"Yeah."

You're surprised that they still have a grasp on what is considered "bad stuff". You'd think that these patients would believe, if anything, what they were experiencing was " _good_ stuff". That they found some sick satisfaction on being experimented on.

It never occurred to you until now that some of these people were human.

The thought makes you sick. You hop back up on your feet and look down on the kid. They're halfway into the light, looking up at you with nothing but interest. You don't like this. Not one bit.

"I'm going to go," you declare, and turn away before you can catch their reaction. You half expect a small pair of teeth to dig into your shoulder any second now.

You reach the end of the wall labeled with directions, and all you feel is eyes staring at the back of your neck.

The tingling feeling of being watched has you spin right back around and you jump slightly. The kid is sitting calmly on the desk, right beside a locked computer. They're watching you intently, their hands placed neatly in their lap. In the light, it occurs to you that their hair is a rusty brown.

"Where are you going?" they call.

You find yourself pointing a thumb to your left before you can register it. "The Security Room."

"Security Room? Why?" Their curiosity pierces into you.

"Going to unlock the doors," is all you can say.

This catches their attention. They position themselves as though they were about to get up, and something has you braced into a running start if needed.

"You can get out of here?" they exclaim, surprise and something awfully close to joy enlightening their tone.

It makes you sick, to think that these patients are trapped in here like you. That they want to see those doors open just as much. Whatever Murkoff was trying to pull, it wasn't at the consent of the mentally ill.

"Uh, yeah," you say. You're so close to asking if they want to come along, because they seem nice enough so that they don't deserve the hell they're trapped in.

But they're in the asylum for a reason, are they not? There has to be some explanation as to why they're locked inside like you. It's not like they were a reporter too.

There's something sick and wrong about them, you just can't see it. It's what drives you to declare to them, "But don't come with me."

That makes them visibly pause. The child gives you an expression that makes you feel guilt clawing at your stomach. You shove it back down.

"Why?" Hurt seeps into their tone. You gulp.

"Because," you pause, and wincing with every syllable, you continue, "Because you need to be in here."

Their gaze becomes dark. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" they almost growl.

"You..." you sigh. You need to get going. "You're a patient. You have to stay here."

"So what are you implying?" they snap, their voice becoming dangerously angry. "That I'm crazy?"

"Kid, I have to go," you reply helplessly, and you're close to bolting down the hallway when a mans silhouette farther down stops you, and you hold your breath.

He doesn't seem to give you that much attention as he slams himself inside a room far down and shuts the door behind him, but your breath is already in your throat.

You look back over at the kid to see if they've tried anything, but they're simply standing at the computer desk, watching you with poorly-concealed rage plastered on their face.

"You're just another one of them," they spit bitterly, more for themselves than for you. You don't reply and head back down the hallway, guilt burning your insides. 

But you keep moving. You don't look back.

-

The door needs a key card.

Of course it does.

You gulp down a sigh, in fear of making noise, and search around for any door that seems fairly pleasant. You don't explore the area near to where the man ran through, naturally, but you still remain curious enough so that you enter a closed door. Nothing there but organs and a battery, which you collect and immediately retreat from.

You recollect yourself in the bathroom, where you film a man hunched over a toilet, dead, the word "Witness" scribbled over him in his own blood. You enter an empty stall and close the door behind you, taking a second to write down some notes in your journal.

_I'm already beat to hell, picking broken glass out of my scalp, couple cracked ribs._

_Nearly killed by a deformed giant, looks like somebody tried to fuck-start his head with a cheese grater._ You smirk. Maybe insults are the only power you have in this place, but it's better than pondering on which of your body parts will be found splattered every which way on the walls. _He throws me through a wall, knocks me unconscious._

 _I wake up and some doughy old man with a face like an alcoholic kiddy fiddler in a homemade priest's outfit calls me his Apostle,_ you write sourly. _Not a job I asked for._

Your pencil pauses on the page, thinking on whether to record the kid's presence or not. It's messed up, right? Murkoff experimenting on children? Wouldn't the people back home be more outraged to hear of this? Wouldn't this result in more publicity? In more justice?

You don't know whether it's sympathy or pity or just guilt that drives your attention away from the child as you decide to scribble down your opinion on the scrawled writing in blood. That'd get enough attention by the public, you assure yourself.

You walk back outside to the corridor, taking a breath as you enter the front desk's viewpoint again. The kid is hunched over what looks like a file, and something synonymous to smugness crosses their face when you come into view.

"Having trouble?" they ask, tone extremely mocking. You grit your teeth.

"You wouldn't happen to know where a key card is, would you?" You bite down every bit of pride you have for survival.

They give you a stare. "If I knew where a key card was, I would've used it, dumbass."

Kid's got a mouth on them. You're not surprised; in a place like this, they're bound to know a curse or two. But still, annoyance drums in your thoughts, even if they're admittedly right.

"What are you even reading?" you call, walking ever so closer to where they're seated. They've pushed the body off the seat so that they could sit down properly, legs crossed over each other in an almost relaxed position, like they've no care in the world.

They spot you inching towards them, and you notice how subdued and off their once-confident posture becomes. 

"None of your business," they grumble, but there's something close to fear there, as though they expect you to bite back. Like you're authority over them.

You pull yourself away from the front desk and start to walk towards the computer room. There's bound to be a key card somewhere, misplaced at least. Or on a dead body. You shudder at the thought.

"Have fun," the child calls since you're still in earshot. "Don't get eaten."

You decide not to press if they're being serious or not, for the sake of your own sanity.

-

You slam the door behind you, holding your aching ribs and taking harsh breaths. You should have known better than to saunter past a seemingly injured Variant. That'll teach you to trust anyone or anything in this god-forsaken building!

What was the man even saying? About the doctor being dead?

No. It's all nonsense. You have to get out. You have more than enough evidence to draw more investigation towards Murkoff Corp. And now you have a key card, so as long as nothing else occurs, you're home free.

The thought is too positive.

With anxiety creeping up your spine, you stride back out to where the child is still seated, but they're watching you now, curiously.

The man in the wheelchair was strong enough to overpower you; who knows what a small child could be capable of?

"Holy shit!" they breathe and immediately get out of their seat; you cringe. "You found the key card!"

Your gaze adverts to the shining gold card in your hands. "Uh," you breathe, faltering. "Yeah, I did."

"So you can open the doors?" They're almost bouncing now, eyes sparkling with excitement. "So you can get out?"

"Kid, I told you to stay in here," you remind them sternly.

They scoff. "Right, like I'll listen to you."

You're about to protest when you see their gaze drift to the doors in from of them. Where outside is freedom, away from this hellscape. It's almost too good to be true.

"Can you really get out?" They whisper, lost in thought.

It's painful to watch, how they yearn for freedom, even more than you do. It has you shove down your argument of their duty as a patient to stay in the asylum. Whatever ties they have here are valid, yes, but maybe in that moment, where you both desperately desire the same relief, you can grant them what mercy you have.

"I'm about to see," you answer, adjusting the card tightly in your grip, and walk back to the Security Room. The kid doesn't say anything; they're so focused on the closed doors, like the minute you open them, they'll bolt for the entrance.

Whoever is left behind in this asylum when you open those doors, you're for certain that the kid will be the first one out.

-

The ogre slams down the door like it was nothing. And to him, it is.

You raise your camcorder ever so slightly and he rummages through the room, observing every corner that you could be hiding. There was no where else to go, and you're cursing yourself for choosing the most obvious place you could be hidden.

"You're still here, aren't ya? Little pig," The growl comes out as garbled, frustrated. He trudges towards the locker, the one that you're not hiding in, and opens it.

Your heart is pounding so hard it's amazing how he can't hear it. Your breath is lodged in your throat, and your eyes are stinging from refusing to blink, in fear of the split second between life and death that you're dancing between.

The locker creaks open, and the ogre's breath is hot as it wafts into your throat, and he pauses as he readjusts himself to look into the other locker, your locker, and you're praying to every God above because your mind is running blank because you're going to die, you're going to die, you're going to—

_Clank!_

The ogre perks up and turns his head back around with a surprised grunt, trudging towards the hallway, and you're close to tears, you're so relieved.

He hesitates outside the door, looking this way and that for the source of the sound. 

"I'll find all you whores," he vows with a low, menacing tone. You're no less scared, but at least you can live for about five more minutes.

Another clank echoes through the hallways, and that gets him heading to the right, where he slams the caged doors behind him in pursuit.

With a huge sigh, you exit the locker tentatively. You barely escaped that one; no better time than to write it down.

_The big fucker is stalking me. Found a patient file for a Chris Walker, ex-military police, several tours in Afghanistan. A lot of the blood in this place is on his hands. But not all of it._

With a grim click of your tongue, you shove away your journal quickly and look down outside the agape doorframe. It's dark, with emergency lighting supplying little refuge. Great.

What on earth is that damn priest up to anyway?

There has to be a generator somewhere. Sucking back up all your shattered courage, you make your way to where the directions would be labeled just outside the corridor.

A small body bumps into your side and your breath escapes your throat in a restricted scream.

The kid suppresses their outburst with more experience, but their widened eyes give away their terror. The minute they recognize you, anger tightens their gaze.

"Nice going, dumbass!" they snap, and you back away one foot instinctively. Dread fills you as you try to shush them to no avail. It only adds fuel to the fire.

"You almost had me," they continue coldly, their glare no more sparing. "You almost made me believe there's a way out. But _now_ look!"

They gesture wildly to the emergency lights and the dark abyss behind them. "Now we're stuck here because you couldn't figure out the difference between the door controls and the fucking power switch!"

"It wasn't my fault!" You find your voice again, and when you do, you ignore the looming threat of Chris Walker in order to expose your growing anger and frustration. "You think I expected Father Jackass to turn off the power before I could unlock the doors?"

The child stops and blinks. "Father who?"

You heave a sigh. "That priest guy," you explain, aggravation still sharp in your tired voice. "He cut off the power."

A spark of comprehension crosses the kid's face. "Oh, Father Martin?" they ask.

"You know him?"

They give a scoff. "Not really," they answer. "He's a patient too. He talks up a lot of religious mumbo-jumbo, so I never listened. Something about gateway to salvation or some shit."

A patient trapped you in here. Fantastic. You make a mental note to record this later.

"So you didn't cut off the power on purpose?" The child snaps you out of your thoughts, their tone sounding more desperate for clarification than anything.

"Hell no," you grumble. "I'm not spending one more minute in this hellhole if I can help it."

The child gives a thoughtful hum of consideration. "If you need help turning on the power," they drawl, "I know where the generator is."

You perk up, your mind become sharper with hope. "You do? Where?"

They point down the dark corridor. "The basement," they answer simply. "I could help, if you wanted."

Your first thought is no. You don't need to be followed around by a child, let alone becoming responsible for their wellbeing. Not to mention that they're still signed into Murkoff's systems for some mental reason or the other. Who knows? Maybe they lure all their victims into an area like this. Maybe their lighthearted joke about cannibalism wasn't so lighthearted after all.

They seem to notice your skepticism with a scowl. "I already helped you lure away that big guy," they argue, "so don't act like you don't need me."

Now it's your turn to start. "What?"

They pick through their pants pocket to uncover a small piece of garbage, shiny and metal. "I saw that bastard break into the security room," they explain airily. "Figured he'd stop you from opening the doors, so I distracted him."

Something clicks. You remember the small noise that echoed through the hallway, the supposedly accidental distraction that ultimately tore Walker's attention from your imminent death.

"That was _you?_ " you exclaim, dumbfounded beyond comprehension.

The kid smirks. "Yeah. I may be small, but I've picked up a few tricks here or there."

Their brisk tone lets you know that they're confident that you can't brush them away now. Not only do you owe them your life, but their resources could be key to survival. If they weren't there to distract Walker, well.

They know this, and it infuriates you to an extent. Yet you sigh and run a defeated hand through your hair.

"Fine," you say. "You can help me turn on the generator."

The kid's eyes immediately brighten. "Great!" They stuff the object back into their pocket for future use. "Let's get going then!"

"Hold on," you say as they lurch forward to rush down the hallway. They pause and give you a somewhat irritated glance over their shoulder. "We've got to set up regulations."

They give you an incredulous stare. "Why? It's an easy mission: start the power up, open the doors. Simple."

"Okay," you hesitantly agree. Admittedly it's a simple task, but something tells you that there's a catch. "But try anything, _anything_ , and I'm leaving you to the dogs."

The kid looks like they're about to roll their eyes. "Very well," they sigh. "Same goes for you, though."

"How so?"

They gesture to themselves. "I'm your ticket to getting out of here, asshole, like it or not. So if you leave me behind, I'm not starting up the power for shit. And we can both rot in here together, got it?"

You bare your teeth behind your tight frown. This kid's right, and they know it. They know this place probably better than you do; they know the kinks to living around here. You need them on your team as much as they need you on theirs.

"Got it," you say grudgingly. "Lead the way, then."

Their posture loosens upon your agreement, and they walk into the darkness with ease. You feel helpless in following them.

"You got a name?" they ask. You bring your camcorder to your eyes and turn on the infrared vision, only barely avoiding tripping over a wheelchair in the dark.

"I could ask the same thing for you."

The kid walks downstairs calmly and glances over their shoulder to give you a cross glare. "I asked you first."

"Fine, name's uh..."

You hesitant for a second, but what's the worst that could happen? Identity theft from an adolescent patient in a mental asylum?

"Name's Miles. Yours?"

The kid hesitates for a good second or two, and you're close to just pushing ahead and scraping the question when they reply in a soft voice, "Chara."

You look at the open door, housing nothing but darkness and concealed terrors inside. The infrared light promises no remorse once you step into whatever level of fresh hell this is.

"Well," you say and sweep your arm into the blackness, "let's go, Chara."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alt: Miles realizes how much of a commitment he's made to getting out safely, and he's beginning to have second thought s about allowing a child on the journey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is going to be a long ride so let's just get this train rolling along the tracks now, shall we?
> 
> You can honestly insert any snarky tween in here, I don't care; I just enjoy elaborating on how Miles is the worst caretaker in history
> 
> Also, a lot of upcoming scenes will be skipped due to a lot of events being similar to the actual gameplay, and I found no use to write them out fully unless the outcome changed due to the accompaniment of Chara in the asylum

The floor is covered with water that soaks through your jeans, but thankfully it's only up to your mid-shin. Unlike poor Chara, who is not only lacking shoes, but is fairly shorter than you.

Their face is plastered with disgust as you both wade through the murky waters, which is far from sanitary and littered with garbage. "Ugh, this is so gross," they mutter.

"Not ideal, no," you agree, but a file floating amidst the swamp grabs your interest. You snatch it as quickly as possible while you're still in lighting bright enough for you to find it.

"Whatcha got?" Chara asks when they spot you pawing through the document.

You scan over words quickly, using your years of experience as a journalist to nab whatever is important enough for you to record later. Nothing much, or at least nothing you didn't expect. It just seems to be calculating a historical example of dream therapy. Not to be trusted, of course, but still more evidence to gather to get Murkoff fucked over.

"Just a document," you reply when finished, and you stuff it away for later.

"Alright then, Sherlock," they mumble, and gain an interest in a conveniently-sized hole in the brick wall to squeeze through.

"I'm guessing we go through there, then," you conclude.

Chara smirks. "After you, old man?"

"Don't insult me." With a grunt, you manage to press trough the gap and you're greeted with even more dark corners to waste your battery life on. You scavenge the room to search for more evidence, but ultimately you give up.

Chara waits patiently for you at the doorframe to your right. "Come on," they instruct. You oblige and let them lead.

When you reach an area smothered in black, something begins itching at you, and you're not sure what it is. Besides the fact that you could die at any second, of course. But as you adjust your camcorder and feed it more batteries you recovered, it begins to slowly dawn on you.

"Hey, kid?" you call out. They look over their shoulder. "How come...you don't need a camera to see?"

They do something funny with their face. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," you try to explain, "you seem to know where you're going....without...any light."

"Oh." Discomfort has them shifting on their feet. You hit a soft spot, but that doesn't mean you're about to let it be.

"Um, the...doctors," Chara starts, spitting out the words with clear distaste, "they enhanced my vision, so. Only good thing that came out of those bastards."

You're reminded once more that you're traveling with a patient. That they've been experimented on to serve some sort of purpose. That they're all inhuman in some way, shape or form. Maybe Chara hasn't showed true signs of their insanity, but perhaps they will with time. And you realize you don't want to be there to see the walls crumble.

You open your mouth to say something, anything, when a voice in the distance makes you both jump.

"W-who's there?"

Chara looks around for the source before backing away slowly and getting behind you. Great. So now you're babysitting this kid.

"Come on," you whisper, swallowing your own fear for the sake of the mission. They regain themselves and the two of you creep slowly forward, to where the guy is rambling nonsense, threatening to hurt you. Like he needs to even try; you're already scared out of your skin.

You turn to face Chara's silhouette in the darkness. "Friend of yours?"

You don't need the infrared light, you can already feel their cold glare piercing your back.

The water does no aid in helping you stay quiet, the slosh of the waves makes you cringe with every step, but you keep going. If you stayed behind, who knows what could happen?

A red light draws your attention, and noiselessly you both silently agree to head for the glowing object. As you move closer, you find yourself greeting the generator.

All the power sources for the generator are out, you realize grimly. So that's how it's going to be.

Chara comes up behind you and observes the predicament. "Ah, shit," they grumble. "It's never that easy, is it?"

You think for a minute. "We'll split up," you decide. "I'll find the gas pumps, you find the breaker. We'll meet back here."

The kid looks at you, and while you can't see them in the darkness, you imagine that they're nodding in agreement. "Sounds good, captain. I'll see you in a few."

And just like that, they're gone. And you're alone.

You never realized it, the terror of loneliness. You miss the kid already, just for the sake of having at least someone. When you'd entered the asylum, there was independence, there was heroism and bravery that enlightened your every step. 

And just like that, it was gone. You were no longer brave. You were alone.

It's the encouragement of finally escaping that has you tumbling back into the water to search for the gas pump.

-

"Just another ghost."

The man saunters out of the room, weapon on hand, and you hold your sigh of relief hostage in fear of him looking under the bed. You'd already flirted with death with Walker, and you'd barely escaped that thanks to Chara's mechanics.

Now you have no one to cover for you. It's just you now.

Regaining confidence, you worm your way out from under the bed and carefully peek outside the door, just to make sure he's gone. Or at least not stalking right outside your door.

No. You're clear for now.

Another door is to your left, you can see with the night vision. You decide to make your move; it's now or never. And if it was anything like this pump room, then there's bound to be some sort of hiding spot in there too.

The door creaks open and has you shoving your camcorder into your face to make sure that you're still in the clear. No sign of him yet. Or at least he's out of your vision for the time being. You take that as your sign to haul yourself into the room and slam the door shut.

The red illumination of the pump relieves you as you punch your fist into the bright button that you're obviously supposed to press. The lovely whirs of the activation soothe you; informing you that your part of the task is done, and hopefully Chara didn't bail out in you at the last minute.

The victory is short-lived when you hear the thumping of rapid feet up the steps outside your closed door.

Lockers. Get in the lockers.

You shut the locker right as the Variant barrels down the door, similar to Walker's tactic. You try to calm your breath as it echoes around your closed casket, and you do your best to ignore the weapon he's carrying: a piece of wood with nails hammered into the ends; not an ideal way to die.

He stalks the room, lurking about, staring at the activated pump. For a second, you think that he's going to turn it off, but eventually you hear the delayed murmur, "Up to heaven. Went away."

You wish.

He walks back out, and you wait a good minute before slowly opening your locker and inching to the doorframe, in case he bothered to stick around. You imagine that he's wandering around aimlessly, like he has nothing better to do than to guard his precious generator. The least he could do is attempt to turn it on.

Sucking air into your lungs, you take a courageous step forward. You hear the soft splashing of Chara not that far from you, and not long after the guy stares in their direction do you hear the clank of a metallic object being thrown in the opposite direction.

You gotta admire the kid. They're quick to notice danger and they've got enough guts. You hope that they fulfilled their half of the deal, though.

They stride up to the stairs and turn when they hear your footsteps dredging through the murky water. You wonder if Murkoff cleaned up their hearing too.

You step up to where the generator is and look at Chara in the red flame. "Are we clear?" they ask.

"All clear," you nod. "Give that button a push."

With a triumphant gleam in their eyes, the kid punches the button, and just like that, the lights buzz to life with a satisfactory hum.

You don't pay full attention to the maniacal screech behind you until you see the whites of Chara's eyes widen with panic. "Miles—!"

Their warning comes too late as the fist barrels into your right ear.

Your ears ring with agony, and Chara is already rushing past you, grabbing your hand in the process as you recover from your initial shock.

_"Run!"_

You don't need to be told twice. When the fear settles in properly, you find yourself sprinting forward, lurched awake by the fear of nails digging into your flesh. You can feel the hot breath of your pursuer driving you forward, and the receding possibility of survival has your cracked ribs screaming and every organ in your body is in overdrive, because you need to live, you can't get caught.

"The wall!" you scream and point wildly at the brick opening, where you entered from. "Squeeze through! Quickly!"

Chara is already pushing through the wall, as the expense of their shoulders, but they trudge through with only the smallest cry of pain. They rush you through with screams of encouragement, telling you to move, move, move, and without looking back you storm back out to where the stairs up to the security room are, not daring to look back.

The safety of the enlightened hallway almost makes you want to cry, and with Chara in tow, the two of you almost collapse on the metal floor of the Security Control. The terror is ebbing away with every hiss of breath you take into your pained lungs, only to be replaced by a numb feeling of shock settling into the pit of your stomach.

You made it. The power is back on. The Variant is gone. It's almost too good to be true.

You turn to see Chara splayed on the floor, their chest heaving. It feels somewhat relieving to know that you're not the only one in a frenzy; it makes your head oddly clearer.

"Alright," you pant. "That went well."

A sharp exhale of laughter escapes the kid. "Let's just open the fucking doors."

You walk over to where you left your keyboard, where the command is still waiting to be carried out. You're so close to freedom that if it gets ripped away from you again you're not sure what you'll do.

As Chara gets to their feet, you turn to them and nod to the naked doorframe. "Keep watch," you order.

They give an airy sigh. "Sure." Without another word, they lean against the frame and cross their arms in a gesture of nonchalance. You take that as a sign that you're in the clear for now. Without sitting down, you start running your fingers boldly across your keyboard.

It's when you hear Chara's warning cry cut abruptly short that you spin around to see Father Martin towering over their crumbled form. He has something in his hands that is sharp enough to have you scrambling for the keyboard again, but his arms are wrapping tightly around your neck. For a stubby little priest, he's surprisingly strong.

The syringe glistens as he raises it above your head before driving it into your throat.

You give the shortest grunt of pain before you collapse on the desk; whatever he's injected into you, it's fast and spreading across your brain like a fog.

"I'm sorry, my son," he murmurs, sounding oddly a bit apologetic. You're not entirely convinced when he shows you the long needle he shot you with. "I didn't want to have to do this to you."

You fumble backwards. Everything is getting horribly hazy; you feel weak, but this is your only chance. You need to get out of here, no matter what. And in the back of your mind, you think of Chara unconscious, and your thoughts swirl.

He grabs your face, bringing you up to his gaze, glassy with a psychotic look that Chara doesn't carry.

"But you can't leave. Not yet. There is so much yet for you to witness."

You try to grasp onto his words, to feel panic, anger, anything. But the world is dissolving into black as he turns your head to a nearby monitor.

He's showing you footage, black-and-white, of a shiny room, too bright and futuristic to be anywhere in the asylum. Soldiers investigate the scenery, guns armed and ready to shoot.

"Will you see it?" Father Martin begs. "Can you?"

The soldiers are suddenly dragged around like helpless dolls, by a force that you may be too brain-dead to truly comprehend.

"Our Lord, the Walrider," the priest continues, "tearing his truth into the unbelievers."

The world is slipping away as the soldiers shoot at nothing.

"The only way out of this place is the truth."

_He's just a patient._

"Accept the gospel," he concludes, pulling you away from the screen as the footage turns to static, "and all the doors will open before you."

You drop to the floor, catching a glimpse of rusty brown hair at the corner of your vision before you fall unconscious.

-

When you wake, you're greeted with white walls.

You're trapped someplace, your eyes blurry as they adjust to the intense lighting of the room. You bring a hand to your face, rubbing exhaustion from your eyes.

 _Now_ where are you?

You hop to your feet immediately, realizing that wherever Father Martin set you, it's probably nowhere close to the exit.

So now what?

All you can do is fumble for your camcorder and position the camera to capture the crawled blood on the walls, reciting religious bullshit that you're already tired of hearing. You're not sure which god Father Martin is referring to, but it certainly doesn't seem like a guy you'd be thrilled in following.

_The Priest, Father Martin, brought me here to show me something. Thinks I'm going to be a witness for whatever batshit crazy he's trying to sell me._

You look around the room, filled with red crosses and bible verses, with a frown. _This Dr. Wernicke is at the center of whatever went wrong here. But he died more than ten years ago. 'Rest in peace,' says the blood on the wall._

You freeze.

_Chara._

Where are they?

You lurch forward to the door locking you inside the bloody cell. You need to find a way out. And admittedly, you need to find the fucking kid. They weren't kidding when they said you needed them; two heads are better than one.

The door is locked. You're about to bite back a curse and calculate your next move before you hear the click of the door opening from the outside.

Your first instinct is to take cover under the bed you woke up on, but then you spot the top of a brunette head through the small window on the door.

Chara pulls on the door with all their might, eventually groaning their way for the door to open enough for you to squeeze past. The location you enter next is dark and damp, unlike the sanctuary the white walls promised. You hear the fanatic cries and groans of the Variants all around you, but your attention is fixated on the relieved gaze of Chara as they walk to your side.

"Thank god I found you," they breathe. "That asshole knocked me out and I woke up here." They give a bitter laugh. "I guess we're not getting out anytime soon, huh?"

You don't answer, instead looking down to the main ground where the patients wander around aimlessly, muttering about who knows what. 

"Where are we?"

Chara looks at where you're looking down at the scattered Variants. "No clue. Some Prison Block, nowhere near the exit."

How did that priest drag you that far from the exit in a limited amount of time anyway?

You suppose some questions don't need an answer.

The only thing you can do is ready your camera and head for the stairs, somewhere away from the upper level stacked with locked cells. "Let's get going," you murmur.

"Where to?"

You audibly grumble, rechecking every door just to make sure that they're locked like yours was. Nope, all clear for now.

"Out of the Block," you decide. "We'll work it out later."

"AKA you have no idea."

You turn to them. "If you have a better idea, I'm all ears," you retort.

Chara shrugs, brushing off your sharp tone casually. "You're the man, Miles."

You ignore their sarcasm purely because of the sharp breaking of glass in front of you as an arm scrambles out the open window. You find yourself holding an arm out to halt Chara, but in realizing the gesture was made you snap your arm back down before they question it.

"I guess he's armed," you hear Chara remark behind you.

You turn your head with a revolted expression. "Hilarious," you sniff. The kid's got jokes.

Their smile is languid, and they find interest in a discarded can on the floor when they mutter, "It wasn't that good."

The thought of confronting an emotional problem rooted deep into an anonymous child is enough for you to move forward towards the stairs.

"Who's this?"

A deep voice turns your attention to the burly silhouettes of the men at the end of the hallway. They're caged in, thank god, but you wouldn't be surprised if they tore down the walls like Walker.

"Maybe Father Martin's man," the other guy responds.

"Maybe."

So now you hold a title. How fast does word spread around an insane asylum anyway?

"He looks...nervous."

_It shows?_

"I would like to kill him."

"As would I."

You feel Chara brush against the sleeves of your jacket, and you rush them down the stairs as the men lecture on about cutting out your throats and liver and going for the kid next.

They're more than welcome to try, you challenge.

You're greeted by a trembling man at the bottom of the steps, looming over a brick column holding the prison. "You look like you've seen a ghost," he greets you.

"Hello to you too," you hear Chara snort. They seem more courageous than you as they saunter to the middle of the block, looking over at one Variant casually as he slams his head multiple times into the wall.

"Kid, slow down," you call out cautiously.

"Why?" they ask you, smiling and hopping about on their feet. "Scared?"

"Terrified." This time you snap your fingers and point to the right side of you. "Now get your scrawny ass back over here before you get yourself killed."

Chara takes their time walking back over to you, but they murmur, "Alright, _Mom._ "

You ignore their remark and activate your infrared to scavenge the outer walls for an escape route.

"See anywhere?" you ask; you're already whispering as you pass a man splayed across a wheelchair; you've learned your lesson when it comes to undermining handicapped patients.

Chara hums thoughtfully as they scour the opposite cells. "Nothing yet. Maybe an open cell?"

Their suggestion causes you to lurk amongst the shadows again, guarded only by your camcorder's night vision and the cautionary measures of your footsteps crunching against the asphalt.

Eventually you search for the closed doors, like a madman, bring spooked a couple of times by a Variant or two, and you find a suspicious gap in the wall among one of the prison cells. You call Chara over to investigate.

"An escape?" they ask hopefully.

"Maybe." You squeeze yourself through the walls and reactivate your infrared the second you can, checking the decrepit brick and interior in fear of an unfriendly face. You turn back to the wall. "Come on through."

Chara wordlessly joins you, and as you observe a place to jump onto an overhang above you, you begin to hear disturbing voices just ahead. Screaming and an eerie silence that follows.

"Let me go ahead," you whisper, and hearing the growing alarm in your tone, Chara doesn't protest.

You hop onto a crate settled near the ledge and climb onto the floor, ignoring the sleazy voice that greets you. When you lift your camera, you bite back a scream as you come face to face with a Variant with a broken jaw, glaring at you.

His friend. Well...

When he notices his audience, he staggers backwards and curses wildly at you, calling you "sick". He shouts how you weren't invited to this get-together, and asking you if you like to watch what you're witnessing. You're so awestruck and terrified, your voice is lodged down to your chest. 

You're close to all-out panic but you manage to build up some restraint— and perhaps foolishness— to back away and yell into the hole, "All clear, come on up."

They struggle for a bit, and it calms you to assist them upright; it helps to forget about the traumatizing scene you just watched.

Without looking back, you can feel the Variants' eyes scorching your back, and you're ready for them to attack you any minute. You find yourself pushing Chara in front of you.

They almost stop. "Why the rush?"

"Just move," you tell them sharply, and they obey without another word. You have a feeling they know that you witnessed something gruesome and they're ready to bite the bullet for you just this once.

You break out your journal and scribble:

_Fuck this place. Seriously, just fuck this place. Dying keeps moving lower on the list of the worst things that could happen to me here._

-

'God always provides a way. Follow the blood.'

You turn to your left, where a shining decontamination room sits in all its metallic glory.

Chara stares a while longer at the message pointing you forwards. "At least they have a system," they comment.

You push them gently forward. "Let's just do as it says. Follow the blood."

They give the smallest nod, and as the doors shut behind you, enclosing the two of you inside with a hiss, you notice outright panic in the whites of their eyes.

You find yourself backing away, in case this happens to be the moment they break, and your heart skips a beat in a moment of panic when Chara clings to your arm tightly and looks around at the shining walls.

Their breath is hitched in their throat as the green gas spills out of the pipes, unnecessarily cleansing you both. You notice that their face is pressed into your sleeve, eyes tightened shut.

When the doors open again, you stare outside a minute, at the dark corridor awaiting you outside. Chara takes another second to stay burrowed in your arm, like you're something safe and stable. You're secure.

The thought has you awkwardly giving the smallest tug, and they snap away from you almost instantly.

Chara takes a minute to scramble about, looking embarrassed, as they wipe dust off their shirt and give a cough.

"Um, sorry," they mumble. They're not looking at you.

You smooth your arm and give a sigh. "It's fine," you murmur. "Let's go."

"Okay."

Without another word, you follow the blood up a couple of staircases. You notice out of the corner of your eye that the kid is hunched over. They're trailing behind you farther than usual, like a whipped puppy.

It's pride that keeps you from reaching for them.

"Down the drain, down the drain."

The whispering of a Variant up ahead keeps you entertained instead. You find the man in question dancing along the walls, waving his hands across giant blood letters, meant for you:

'Down the drain.'

"Down the drain, down the drain," the Variant chants, like a song he's eager to finish. He doesn't notice the two of you approach. "With the blood, he said. Only way out is down. Down the drain."

"This way!" Chara calls you over to another hole in the floor, smeared with enough blood to let you know that this is the way to go.

"One second!" you tell them, finding an odd interest in the dark corner of the corridor. A stupid move of course, but you're a journalist. You're used to it.

Your ambition pays off when you recover a document settled neatly on a desk, darkened by the lack of light in the area. You snatch it and head towards where Chara is positioning to jump downwards.

"Another file?" they inquire.

"Let's see what we have here," you mutter, flipping through the page. Seems like a letter addressing Father Martin. You perk up with interest and skim the letter quickly.

Chara waits patiently. "Well?"

You give them a smirk. "Seems like our good friend Father Martin was a master at finger painting."

Realization dawns on their face as their gaze shifts to the message of blood on the wall, where the Variant still dances across the words.

They give a laugh. "No way," they say, a grin spreading across their face lacking humor.

You shuffle the file away, accepting the situation at hand. You're stuck here, in an asylum, being played like a puppet for a sick patient's plans. The writing on the wall now infuriates you. The thought of following blood to an unknown destination makes you sick. But what other choice do you have? As good as Chara is, Father Martin could be the ultimate key to escape.

"So," you declare, "down the drain?"

Chara nods. "Down the drain!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think every chapter should come with an apology
> 
> But then again, if you've made it this far, that means you must be sticking around for some reason or another, so congrats!
> 
> Tune in for the next installment of Salty Journalist and the Traumatized Bean


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alt: If you had to ask Miles if he'd rather travel through Mount Massive alone or listen to another minute of Chara's awful jokes he'd assume that it was a trick question

Turns out "down the drain" is easier said than done.

You're not sure what you expected, but more blood trails to follow was something you'd hoped to be a one-time thing rather than a chronic objective to follow. Maybe you wanted a clearer path? An actual drain?

The only thought that reassures you is not revealing the truth to the public, you realize; you find that having company keeps your thoughts sharper. Not to mention the kid's good to have if you get into a pinch like with Walker.

You hop over an abandoned desk blocking the path, taking note of the empty halls that only influence your dread. It'd probably be wise to start making tactics yourself in order to slow pursuers; shutting doors behind you may be a bit more of a pain, but it would help out your running start.

Looks like you still have time to kill, though. You don't hear any scuffling or maniacal mumbles anywhere near you.

You glance over your shoulder to where Chara is hopping off the desk you just encountered. "You never told me," you begin, "Are you a girl? I'm assuming because of the hair, but I didn't wanna be a sexist bastard."

They give you a stare exhibiting discomfort at the thought. "I'm nothing," they announce. "Got a problem with that?"

You assumed they would say something if they had a problem themselves with you calling them just "kid", but you're not one to protrude in those areas; you know how touchy certain subjects like gender can be with people.

"I think I have more problems right now than to worry about your gender," you reply. They give a small chuckle, but it's not enough to assume that you're in the clear for asking a shitty question.

You look around, seeing if you still have time for light talk. Seems so. 

"My, uh, my ex's sibling, they didn't have a gender either. I didn't see what the fuss was about, really, but hey, not up to me to make that decision for them, right?"

Chara gives you the ghost of a sincere smile; they don't meet your eyes still. "I guess not."

There's silence that follows, but you find the dreading the anticipation of a scare dissipating into something a bit more comfortable.

"So," Chara says, "you date?"

You blink. "Huh?"

"You mentioned an ex," they explain, almost embarrassed. "I just thought there was a story behind it."

You think for a minute, ignoring a distant pair of footsteps and reassuring yourself that it was heading in the opposite direction.

"No, no story," you tell them. "He was nice, just didn't click, I guess."

You see Chara grin. "So you play for the other team, then?"

"Look at you, little detective," you tease, and a smirk crosses your face for a split second before you look ahead and ignore eye contact. "Maybe you should investigate this asylum for me, take over my job."

You hear Chara give a good-natured laugh that's short-lived.

_"Quiet!"_

You both scramble for the corner of the wall as you hear the angry scream, followed by multiple grunts that a person would emit upon attacking someone.

You head around the corner, slowly, your heart pounding as it recognizes the environment you're stuck in; unstable and violent. The fresh blood splattered against the window you pass by is enough to warn you that the man throwing himself upon a dead body isn't your friend.

He pauses his work to stare at you through the glass.

Your breath clogs in your throat as you put a hand behind Chara. "Get ready to run," you mutter; seems like wherever you're heading, you have to pass this Variant.

"Got it," they whisper, their voice laced with horror that's currently on standby. You're close to thinking that they're about to grab your arm again, but they don't.

You pass the entrance slowly, avoiding the glare that penetrates your back and seems  
To burn through the wall. He's waiting now, waiting for you to be in his path so that he can slaughter you just as messily as his recent kill splayed across the floor.

No. He just stares; you're not sure whether that's a good thing or not.

"I'd like you to stay quiet," he whispers, pointing a threatening finger in your direction.

Hell, with that bloody stick in his hand, you'll sew your mouth shut if needed.

You give Chara beside you a reassuring pat and keep yourselves pressed to the wall. If he's about to strike, you're ready to sprint for it.

Once you're out of his sights, you exhale a breath and see that Chara has done the same. "Alright," they sigh. "Let's get out of here."

You couldn't agree more. "There's a security room," you inform them, gesturing to the door in front of you. "Let's see what we can find in there."

The kid regains their posture quickly enough for you to be fairly impressed on their revived courage. "Okay."

"Stay behind me," you order, and they don't argue for a second.

You walk towards the closed door slowly, keeping your eye out for if the Variant behind you wants to change his mind about letting you off the hook so easily.

When you open the security room's door, the Variant is the last thing on your mind.

"Who..?"

You're not given time to answer; the man has already abandoned guarding the security controls and is already running for you.

"Run!" You shove the kid forward pretty brutally, but it gets the point across without protest. Chara sprints ahead of you, clearly forgetting the looming threat of the Variant waiting for you around the corner.

You're barely registering the man's threats behind you. "You're one of those Murkoff sons of bitches aren't you?" he screams. "I want to show you something!"

You're not going to stick around and tell him otherwise. It's not like he's in any state to listen to reason.

"Keep going!" you screech. "Go on ahead!"

Luckily, in the area you hadn't checked out yet, there was a convenient tool for you to rush into and slam the door. "Hide! Find a place to hide!"

Chara dissolves into the darkness without another word, and as the door begins to thunder with the effort of someone attempting to break in, you take refuge in a locker.

Good thing too, because the door slams in on itself the second you shut yourself inside.

The patient seems intimidating enough with his own makeshift weapon in hand, pacing the room like he knows you're there, like you'll make yourself known in your own time.

Your breath shortens when you spot him going into the area you saw Chara run into, and you're close to getting out the locker out of the purpose of forming a diversion.

_Clank!_

The object soars across the room and finds landing right outside the doorframe, and you find yourself smugly grinning. Kid's quick, no doubt about it.

Sure enough, the distraction works. The man's head snaps towards the source of the sound, hook line and sinker. 

Without another word, he storms his way out of the room to investigate the noise, and you hesitate longer than Chara does apparently; you see them walking out calmly into the opening of the room, and as a reflex you join them.

They give you a proud smile. "Did you see that?" they ask excitedly; you're assuming they're referring to their recent escapade.

"Very clever," you admit, but your mind is already drawn towards the empty corridor. That was too easy; no way he was fooled that quickly by a small diversion like that.

"Let's go back," you decide.

"That sounds like a good way to get killed."

"We don't have a choice," you argue. "Let's move forward. Only way to go."

With a sigh, Chara follows behind. You hear the sharp whisper from behind, from the Variant locked in a cell behind you.

_"They weren't experiments. They were rituals. A conjuring."_

-

When you press the button, the hiss of the decontamination room before you illuminates the scene. Across the glass walls you're facing are the simple words and an arrow.

'Follow the blood.'

So you're on the right track then.

Chara, who's at the door keeping watch, turns to you quick enough to anticipate a warning on their behalf. "He's coming back! Hide!"

You don't need to be told twice. As Chara ducks under the desk behind you, you head for another locker. Good thing this place has the equivalence of a high school corridor when it comes to providing lockers; not everyone is small enough to hide in tight squeezes.

Sure enough, the Variant shows up right on cue. He makes his daily run, searching the room, not looking under the desk where Chara is seated, concealed cleverly in the shadows.

As he heads towards your lockers, the object is cast out of the room and provides a well-timed clamor that has him drawn away from your hiding spot.

"Slippery. So slippery," he murmurs, and he readies his weapon as he heads outside the area. Chara saved your ass again, you guess.

You exit the locker first and motion for Chara to join you. They scoot their way out to where you are and give you another cheeky grin.

"Guess you're fucked without me, huh?" They sniff, sounding just as conceited as they look.

You're in no mood to argue; dancing with death more than once like that takes too much energy out of you, so you just give a tired murmur of agreement and look down the hallway again.

"Follow the blood?" Chara asks.

"Follow the blood."

The walk back is quiet.

-

The next time you're locked in the decontamination room is deja vu, but this time you're ready.

The room is showered with green gas, and Chara freezes in their tracks to reach for your arm.

"I'm sorry," they mutter, then again, "I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm sorry..." It's like a broken record.

For the first time, you begin to wonder about Chara's experience in the asylum. The therapy hasn't effected them yet, at least not from what you can see, but what happened here exactly? What sealed their fate into this hellscape?

You don't even notice your free arm coming up to settle in their messy hair until the fizz of the machines has calmed and the bay doors before you open back up.

"It's okay, kid," you say absentmindedly, even when things couldn't be farther than okay. But it's something, to have verbal confirmation that you're still here. They haven't gotten hold of either of you yet, and maybe that's all you need.

Chara sniffles and gives your arm another squeeze before releasing it.

"You're such a shitty liar," they say with a watery chuckle, but their eyes are brighter than before. They can keep going, and so can you.

You reach out to smooth a strand of hair before quickly fumbling for your camcorder again. "Right, uh," you stammer, peering back out to the dark room you've been dumped into, "Let's go."

"Sure thing, Mister..." They tighten part of their smile thoughtfully. "What's your last name again?"

"Oh, uh," you walk out to the room slowly, "Upshur."

You hear Chara snort. "Miles Upshur? That's your name?"

"Are you gonna insult me or are you gonna put your night vision to good use?"

They walk out, looking as audacious as ever, with a smile plastered on their face and mischief sparkling their eyes more so than the tear stains.

"Quite a predicament we're in, huh?" They ask, voice too teasing for you to be comfortable with whatever line they're setting you up for.

"Oh, you noticed?" you retort. "Get over here."

"Guess you could say we're..." They give you a toothy grin they can barely contain. "Miles Upshur without a paddle?"

Their eyes are bright with concealed laughter, and you feel the urge to press your face into your hands.

"I'm close to leaving you behind."

"Yeah, right," Chara sighs contentedly. "I saved your ass twice and I'm the only one who hasn't tried to kill you, or posed as a threat. You need me."

You don't answer, biting the inside of your cheek. As hellish as it seems, they're right. They haven't tried to kill you yet. Until they try something, you're indebted to them. It's only fair.

And you remember their face glazed with horror as they clung to your arm while trapped in a seemingly safe room. Whether they want to admit it or not, they need you too.

"C'mon," you instruct. "Let's keep moving."

"For sure, Upshur."

You suppress a sigh. Those exit doors seem so far away now.

-

It's not far down the hallway where you hear an all-too-familiar voice echoing around the corner.

"We gave them a chance."

You peek around the corner and find that farther down, behind caged doors, is the burly creeps from the prison cell. They're holding weapons.

"That we did," the other agrees, voice low and monotone.

"Who is it?" Chara asks you in a hushed voice. You shush them.

"I'd say we were more than fair," the first man continues.

"Paragons of patience."

"Job-like in the suppression of our desires."

Their calm voices don't soothe you any more. They're no better than the others who've tried to murder you, but the fact that they're poised, that they could be sipping a martini while pulling out your organs, unnerves you.

"But now."

"Now."

"Now we indulge."

"Yes."

You motion for Chara to follow you down the hall, coming face-to-face with the men with nothing more than a weak cage door protecting you.

The men don't move. They almost look like twins, from your infrared light; you also notice that they're not wearing clothes, and you snap down your camera with disgust. For sure the audience doesn't want to see that. You drive Chara's attention away from their naked bodies to motion them to an open window nearby.

"Their tongues and their livers."

"Yours."

"Mine."

You're not listening anymore. They're just rambling on about how to kill you, which is not encouraging enough for you to want to stick around.

You hop outside the window. A risky move, since the twins could pull you in at any second from the window on their side. But now or never.

"Follow me," you tell Chara, and they watch as you lower yourself onto a bar just below the windowsill until you're dangling off the ledge, supported only by your hands gripping the sides.

They give you an incredulous stare. "You cannot be serious."

You don't have time for this. "Would you rather be babysat by dumb and dumber?" you snap, rolling your eyes to the direction the twins are residing.

The kid registers a sharp glare that's all bark and no bite as they scurry down to where you're hanging by a thread.

"Come on" you whisper, and you begin to shuffle your way to the right. It's hard and makes your damaged ribs hurt with every inch forward, but you keep going. You can hear from the short breaths beside you that Chara isn't having a pleasant time strafing either. You hope that this method is a one-time thing.

The window is ajar in from of you, where the twins reside. You expect a pair of arms to reach out and grab you right then and there, but upon further inspection, you notice that the twins are gone. Vanished in thin air. Not that you're complaining.

Sucking up the last of your energy, you haul ass up through the window with an exhausted grunt. You look around, confident that the twins are still around, waiting. No way in hell they just let you go right after talking about the pleasures of tearing you limb from limb.

With a bitter sigh, you realize you're still playing the game. You're becoming a puppeteer for multiple shoemakers; the problem is that the strings are getting a tad bit too tangled for you to keep up with. The more you wriggle and squirm, the deeper you're sucked into this hellhole.

You grab Chara's arms and help them pull in with much more ease than you were able to. They spin every this way and that, looking for the twins too, before you report, "They're gone."

"Gone?" They press, "or fucking with us?"

You jump over to an area at your right, avoiding broken glass splayed all over the floor. 

"There's no difference," you answer Chara, spotting a document and heading towards it. "Stay out there for a second, I just saw a document. I'm heading back."

Chara looks at you curiously, crossing their arms as you hop back over to where they are. "You're still collecting things?"

"Of course," you reply, moving forward at the sight of a blood trail smeared on the floor. "Last time I checked, I was still an investigative reporter."

Their eyebrows raise upon hearing your title. "That's a fancy term," they comment. They follow behind you. "So you're still recording everything? Is that why you came here?"

You scoff. "Well, I didn't come here for the food, that's for sure."

With a pained expression at the mention of food, Chara wraps their arms around their stomach with a whine. "Ugh, speaking of, I'm _starving!_ I haven't eaten in _so long!_ "

Now that they mention it, running around a creepy asylum with death trending upon your every footstep has left you fairly famished. "We'll eat later," you assure them.

"When I get out of here, I want the _biggest_ cheeseburger! Is that diner not far from here still open?"

You pause. "What diner?"

Chara scrunches up their face, as though they're trying to recall something. "I, um, don't really remember the name? But it's several miles down the mountain, out near town. They have really good burgers. When we get out, I say we head there first thing."

It's odd, saddening even, to hear a mental patient recall memories of a town not far from here, to think that maybe that was someplace they called home before something went awry. Chara had a life, parents, friends even, before this. The thought terrifies you.

But you find yourself murmuring, "Sounds good. I'm buying."

You encounter a corner cleared marked for death, with marks of blood coating the entrance of the locked door that's labeled, "Showers".

Chara sighs as you jiggle the doorknob to no avail. "The door needs a keycard, doesn't it?"

You bite back a groan. "Or course it does."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alt: Where this whole "caretaker" thing is beginning to rub off on Miles but it's not enough to make up for his problematic personality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all to everyone who has left a nice comment on this! It makes me so happy to see that other people are enjoying what this silly little fanfic has to offer!! I was expecting a lot of hate comments for this, haha

"We have to contain it."

You watch helplessly as Walker tears off the head of his latest victim, his neck spitting out pools of blood as his decapitated body crumbles to the prison's floor.

He walks off, head in hand, to another location, as the surviving patients scurry off into the shadows, in fear of the ogre's giant claws finding their own throats.

You record the situation somberly, taking a minute to uncover your journal.

_We can't shake Chris Walker, the big ugly fucker who likes ripping off peoples' heads. I hear him muttering about security protocols, containment._

You look down at the rotting corpse, his guts spilling across the floor. You recall Walker's file; he was an ex-soldier, he had a job, people to protect. If Murkoff was able to mess up his mind before, it wouldn't be surprising if he was thought he was back in Afghanistan, protecting a nonexistent village from a looming threat.

But protecting them from what?

 _What if he's not the problem?_ you wonder in your notes. _What if he's trying to fix it?_

You don't like seeing the morality, human acts burrowed within the minds of the patients, glossed over by experimental insanity that some didn't ask for. It makes you lose your own train of thought, which is already vital enough so that you're keeping a firm grip on the controls, in fear of winding off the rails, becoming one of them in the process even.

It's when you're stuffing away your journal that you realize you'd inadvertently wrote down "we", instead of "I". You think about fixing your mistake before Chara calls to you from the shadows. They're holding something gold and glistening in one of their hands, and when you recognize it you don't think you've seen anything more beautiful.

"Look what I found!" they proudly exclaim. "Not too shabby, right?"

"Where'd you find that?" you ask. Your eyes are still glued to the corpse bleeding out below you.

Chara doesn't seem to notice your wandering gaze as they place the card in your own hand. "There was a dead body over there, so I snagged it from him. I don't think he'll mind too much."

You never noticed how small Chara is. That they're a child, casually stealing keycards off of dead bodies without batting an eyelash just to survive another minute or two. They're tiny, they're weak, they throw objects away from their location so that people won't try to kill them. They clung to you when the gas of the machine hissed at them, yet they pay no matter to the amount of organs and blood littered around them.

You find yourself tucking Chara closer to your side and drawing them away from looking down at the sight of Walker's victim.

"Um," they start, "something wrong?"

You shake your head. "It's nothing. Let's get to the showers," you mumble, and your grip on their shoulder tightens as you make your way back to the Shower Door. "We'll be safe there."

As your mind races with Afghanistan and Variants and Walker, you feel through the haze of panic that Chara has latched onto your jacket. They lean their tiny frame into yours as your walk. 

"Okay," they whisper, and they sound exhausted, like they've aged over the course of an hour; they're wiser than they should be, yet just as vulnerable as a child is expected to be.

Like it or not, Chara is your responsibility now.

-

The showers are much, much darker than you'd wanted, but in here, you're learning to be grateful for what you have. You realize you can't go wrong with three batteries remaining and a kid who can see in the dark.

"So we get out through here?" Chara asks, but they quiet down when they realize how much their voice carries throughout the area.

You recharge your batteries and switch on your night vision. "That's correct," you confirm. "Keep an eye out for any of our friends, would you?"

Chara's teeth illuminate their smile on your infrared. "Ogre Man or Siamese Twins?"

"Well, let's see, would you rather be decapitated or have your organs cut out?"

You regret asking as soon as the words escape your lips; nothing to joke about with a child. The worst part is that Chara doesn't seem fazed by your sarcasm. "Neither seem appealing. I'll look out for both."

"Good call."

The air that cools the atmosphere emits from the open windows, ghosts of curtains drifting across the ajar windowsills and sweeping across the floor. Outside, rain pours down, lighting scraping across the sky.

You head down the hallway, and the lighting helps in a sense that becoming blind with the sudden light filling your screen would usually be perceived as beneficial.

Thunder cracks in your ears and Chara pauses in front of you, and you almost barrel into them. You spot what they're looking at.

One of the twins is lurking towards you, slow and steady, in all his naked glory. His hand is gripping a piece of sharpened wood so dangerously that you immediately turn tail to bolt in the other direction. Too bad that "twin" usually means there's two of them, and that's not exception when you look behind you and spot the mirrored Variant, looking as gruesome as his brother (or are they not even brothers? You wouldn't know).

"Out the window!" you gasp, pushing Chara to the closest opening you can find, following them abruptly after.

"My god, they vanished."

"Vanished without a trace."

Without being told, Chara shafts their way to the farthest window, and you hold onto your ledge with a death grip due to the sleek surface of the overhang from the pouring rain above you.

"I detect sarcasm," Idiot #1 continues.

"It was my intention," Idiot #2 explains.

You look over in a panic when you hear Chara slip on the glossy rocks they're climbing over. Before you help them out, they quickly recover. "I'm okay," they breathe, and surge forward.

"They think we're assholes."

"Or stupid."

Your heart is pounding. They know you're here. They saw you escape. You're both being played for fools.

"Let's pull them in and split their bellies open."

You see out of the corner of your eye that Chara has hauled themselves up to the last window they can manage, probably due to the unstable wetness of the ledge. You're about to scream at them to jump back outside in fear of the twins grabbing them before you can protest.

"Wait. Just a moment."

Your muscles burn as you push yourself up to where Chara leans against the window frame, idly watching you. 

"Heya, champ," they greet you.

You give your shoulder sleeves a small shake to rid of any extra droplets from the rain. "Let's keep moving before they dissect us," you order with a sigh.

"I think the door's this way."

You allow Chara to weave through the obstacles shrouded by darkness with ease, all the more impressed when they lead you to what appears to be an exit for whatever room you're trapped in with the loon brothers.

As you slam the door behind you, Chara pipes up, "If I get lost in here, will I be looking for miles just to find you?"

The pun takes a minute to settle in.

"You're walking on extremely thin ice with these jokes, kid," you grunt, but you know that you don't mean it. The problem is that they know that too.

"Wanna hear another one?" they press with a playful smirk.

"No."

"Too bad. What do you call a cow that twitches?"

"Sick."

"Nope. Beef jerky! Get it?"

"Ha ha. Why don't you go back and play with the naked brothers for a while."

Chara opens their mouth, most likely to make another stupid joke, before they gain an interest in the checkered floor ahead of you leading into another room. Before you enter the area, they pick up the pace and brush past you to observe an electric chair placed in the middle of the room.

"Oh shit," they mumble, pacing around the equipment, "That's intense."

You frown yourself. Murkoff certainly wasn't joking around when it came to the horrid conditions the patients had to live in. You wonder how many barely survived the Morphogenic treatment— or how many met their fates much farther behind the process.

The chair seems like it wasn't used too long ago, from seeing the stains and god-awful stench rising from it.

"Miles?"

You look over to where the kid has walked over to the doorframe, their expression unsettled.

"Can we...go now? Please? I don't like this room."

There's a document on the desk to the far corner, and you rush over to pick it up. It's scarring to see Chara so upset. You wonder if this isn't their first encounter with instruments of torture.

"Yeah," you sigh, making your way back to where they wait for you. "Yeah, I don't like this either. Let's go forward."

"Thanks."

You look over to your shoulder to where Chara has trailed behind you. That's the first time you ever heard a note of gratitude from the kid. Half of you wonders what took so damn long; the other has a hint as to why. You wouldn't be feeling too grateful being cared for by an abusive asylum either.

The hallway is eerily close to where the twins encountered you for a second time, but it's empty now. Relief and dread course through at the same time.

You look to your left and spot a small security room. Seems like there's something in there worth checking out.

"Through here," you instruct, and you jump over a wall once guarded by a layer of glass. "Watch for broken glass," you note.

Chara follows where you'd placed your hands and hops over without breaking a sweat. "What's in here?"

The room is longer than you'd expected, and after attempting to open a locked door, you notice a bright red button, similar to the one back near the Security Control not long ago. You remember it's message; follow the blood. This has got to be the place to go.

You press the button and watch the denomination room in front of you hiss with life.

Walker storms into the room, the only thing guarding you from his menacing claws is a field of glass. He stares at you, his eternal smile glistening with blood and fangs.

He starts pounding on the window, and your brain starts functioning again.

_"Run!"_

You whip back around as the glass deteriorates behind you; Chara is already climbing onto a desk, and before you can ask what the hell they're doing, you see them clambering up into a vent you hadn't noticed was broken before.

"Up here!" they call. You trip over your own feet, Walker's thundering growls coming closer and closer to your ear drums, already pounding with blood.

Your hands almost slip from where they're gripping the edge of the vent. You can already feel Walker's claws clutching around your throat like you're a rag doll.

Chara makes haste to grab your arms and pull with all their might when they see you struggling, and trough the fog of adrenaline making your head numb, you manage to gasp, "Are you okay?"

Walker grunts angrily below you, seeing as you went where he couldn't follow. Hasta la vista, filthy animal.

"I'm fine," Chara answers, almost as out of breath as you are. They look down to where the vent turns sharply to the right. "Nowhere to go now."

"Just keep moving forward," you order, pushing them gently toward the vent corner. What other choice do you have?

As you both make as much noise as humanly possible shuffling around the vents, you begin to think that was too easy. The minute you find an opening, it might as well be over. These vents are the only temporary break; and who knows how long that will last before some Variant gets smart enough to hop up into your hiding spot?

You turn the corner, and speak of the devil, a gaping hole swallows any hope of moving forward in the vents.

Chara voices your concerns. "We have no choice, do we?"

You don't ask for clarification; you both are on the same level of fear to know exactly what the other is thinking. "Let's just go down," you say defeatedly, your mind already beginning to churn with forgotten panic. "Like ripping off a bandage."

Chara moves out of the way as you push forward to get down first. Without waiting for your say, they jump down beside you. They are obviously much more courageous than you.

The door behind you starts banging loudly. Walker.

"Go!" You shout. Neither of you need to be told twice. You sprint down at an equal pace, both terrified, both breathless. But the minute you hear Walker tear down the door, just as easily as the door back at the security control, you're filled with almost inhuman speed that draws you faster and faster. Blood pumping, ears ringing, mind racing, ribs aching, the whole synonym of terror packed into two bodies at once.

When the two of you are all the way through a convenient cell door, you slam it behind you in hopes of slowing down Walker, despite the fact that he can easily trudge through that door as easily as the others. Still, one second delays could save your life. So you keep going.

In front of you, something is on fire.

It's a gaping wall of flames swallowing a doorframe; you don't recall seeing that door, but then again, you don't remember seeing something on fire either when you walked in. The heat is intense in the room, and not just from sweating like a pig from getting away from Walker.

It's with a sick feeling that you realize you have to push through and take your chances with the fire.

Chara hesitates beside you in their steps, and you find yourself grabbing their arm rather forcefully, something they don't take very kindly to. Despite their eyes glazed with horror, you scream at them, "Don't stop! Keep going!"

You're still holding their arm when the fire surges forward as you past it. The impact of the powerful flames has you both flailing forward, right through an open window. And then you're falling.

Neither of your scream, your heart is too far lodged in your throat to do so. The freedom of the fall doesn't last long when you crash into the ground, something hard breaking your fall. It's not desirable.

A light is swinging overhead from where you fell, and that's when you regain your voice. You scream in pain, ribs and heart and everything finally collapsing. You're dead, there's no argument about it.

Where even are you?

Your lungs are still trying to catch up with your harsh breathing, doing little to no wonders in helping your aching ribs. The light above you provides an ugly lighting to the pillow you fell on.

Bodies. Mutilated, pink bodies.

It's touching everything. Your jacket, the back of your neck, your fingers. You bring a steady hand to your face, watching your arms shake with fear and exhaustion. You're touching bodies, maybe even organs. The thought is so petrifying that you attempt to get to your feet.

The kid.

You look around, heart beginning to pick up speed. Where are they? Did they land on the concrete? Are they—

No. No no no.

"Chara!" You find your voice long enough to screech into the darkness. It's the second time you called them by their name, you realize.

The response is immediate. "Miles?"

They're alive.

You look down to where you were certain the source of the voice emitted from. There they are, lying sideways on the large piles of bodies, their expression twisted with pain as they stumble to your feet. You lock eyes, and they begin to shift towards you to the best of their ability.

You reach out to them, and they grab your hand shakily.

"Are you okay?" You ask.

"Yeah," they gasp. "I'm okay. You?"

"I'm fine."

Relief lasts only a second more when you realize you're still on top of the bodies. You help Chara scramble down to the floor. It's when you take a step back that you realize they're holding something.

Your camcorder.

They catch your eye again and hold out their arm to give you the device. "Found it landed next to me," they explain. You say nothing as you recheck its batteries and overall status. Yep, still good. You feel gratitude swelling up in your broken chest.

Chara smiles. "It's a pretty good model if it can land from that height and still survive."

You look back to the corpse pile. "Yeah," you murmur absentmindedly. It's after you get enough of looking at the sickening sight that you register looking at your darkened surroundings, save for the light above you that's giving the bodies all the spotlight. "Where are we?"

Chara catches the worry in your tone and begins to look around alongside you. "I don't know," they answer finally. "Not the showers, though."

You sigh. Great. Now you have to find another path to the showers. "Let's get moving," you tell them, motioning them to your side. "We'll find another way."

"If you say so."

Their tone sounds resigned, but before you can ask, you hear a familiar growl from up ahead.

Walker begins to heave himself down the steps, looking into the darkness, looking for you.

"I'm coming. You won't have to kill yourselves."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alt: Local journalist gives it his best shot in being a comforting man, somewhat succeeds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This may or may not have anything to do with the chapter, but in the case that you have a third-degree burn, do NOT just cover it:
> 
> -Soak the burn for five or more minutes  
> -Take pain medication  
> -Apply a soothing pain cream  
> -It's optional to wrap a dry gauze bandage LOOSELY around a burn  
> -And you'll probably want to consult a doctor
> 
> Just a suggestion.

It doesn't take long for the two of you to split up into separate areas. You know he can only rip off one head at once, after all.

Before you scatter, you notice Chara kneeling down and quickly grabbing items you hadn't paid attention to off the floor before taking off. Probably stocking up materials to distract Walker with.

As you notice Walker's approaching grunts are becoming steadily louder, you duck into an open cell and hide underneath the bed. Sure enough, the ogre himself passes past your hiding spot, grumbling about you probably. Complaining about how slippery you are or something.

Your breath must have alerted him to your hiding spot somehow, because you can hear his rattling chains tracing back his footsteps to just get outside your hiding spot. And before you can register it, Walker is inside your cell.

He stops in the middle of the room, and you're surprised he can't hear your heart preparing to explode out of your chest. He looks around, sharply growling, and any second he's going to get smart and look under the bed and you're dead and he's going to add your head to his collection—

_Clank!_

Walker turns to where the noise echoes outside, and you stop yourself from heaving a sigh of relief. "Filthy rat," he mumbles (how can he even talk with that thing in his mouth?) and walks back out into the open.

You wait a while, recollecting the last bit of your sanity, before you decide life's too short to be stuck under a bed all your life and bolt for it. Of course, you still find some dignity left in you to press your back to the wall and scoot towards an exit of some sort.

You know you heard Chara time a distraction just as you were kissing life goodbye, but when you bring the infrared light to your eyes you can't spot them. The kid must be pretty good if they can hide themselves from even your night vision. The problem is now you have no clue how to find them.

Walker's chains alert you that he's fairly far off, and you get the dumbest idea yet.

Shifting your camcorder down to the floor, you scavenge from above for a tiny piece of a bottle, a brick, anything. If Chara is as smart as you give them credit for, the minute you chuck that object into the darkness, they're bound to trace the source of the thrower back to you, and you'll meet up near the caged door that you're leaning against.

You find luck in scraping up a dented soda can. If this doesn't work, you're basically screaming at Walker to rip your throat out. But it's now or never.

With a swift lurch of your arm, you hurl the can into a nearby table and feel the cold dread drip down into your chest as Walker makes a surprised snort from farther down when the object's impact echoes trough the block. Without missing a beat, he turns his fat ogre self around and heads towards the noise. You crouch down instantly and shimmy farther down the wall, and ultimately farther from your exit doors.

It isn't long before you hear the familiar clank of a tiny object finding its own surface from farther down. A signal.

Walker stops in his tracks and swiftly turns to the source. "I know you're there," he growls, but his words sound uncertain. He's probably catching onto your schemes, which means you need to be getting out of here right now before he gets smart.

Chara's head pokes out of a pile of wreckage just in time, and their eyes glow amid your infrared. When your gazes lock, they do a quick double-take amongst their surroundings before slowly crawling to where you are. You take that as your cue to head back to the doors and get out.

You both meet back outside, after you manage to squeeze through a tight area where you're certain Walker can't follow you. Still, as you're cramped against the tight walls, you imagine his claws reaching through the gap, throwing you through a window, and when you're on the opposite side you swear you're gasping for breath.

Chara joins you on the other side, their small figure maneuvering through the gap with much more ease than you. "Are you okay?" they ask.

You need to regain yourself. You just need to keep moving. "I'm fine. Let's get to the showers."

"If we can even find the showers," they grumble, quite uncharacteristically.

You turn back to them to make a comment on their sudden negativity when you spot something red and blemishing on their shoulder.

A burn. Probably from the fire. It even seethed through their clothing.

It's amazing that they haven't dared to comment about it, but when you search their expression, you notice a hidden layer of pain that's glossing their face; their eyes are dark and their face is almost shiny with sweat. That thing has got to hurt.

Chara catches your stare and they return it with a defensive glare. "What?"

They know that you saw the wound.

You don't know what to say. All you can picture is in the heat of the moment, how you'd brutally pushed them to your side without concern of their condition. How you accidentally pushed them into the harsh explosion and they'd spared you from the worst of the flames.

Guilt has you losing your voice. All you can murmur is, "Your shoulder."

Chara blinks with surprise, and all at once, their face is plastered with exposed agony. You're guessing it's somewhere along the line of a third degree wound. They look down at the floor, bringing an arm to the burn tentatively and hovering over it, as though scared to touch it

"It's fine," they falter.

It's not. You should be the one with the burn. You've just injured a child.

You reach forward to further examine the wound in question, but Chara steps backward from your touch in a moment of panic. "It doesn't hurt!" They lie. "It's fine, really."

You frown. The burn is littered with bubbling blisters and the skin is so inflamed you can practically see the smoke sizzling off of the flesh. If that doesn't hurt, then you're straight.

"Kid, I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure that that thing fucking hurts," you decide to voice your concerns.

Chara avoids your gaze and finds interest in the corridor behind you, shrouded in darkness that appears blocked off.

"I'll manage," they sigh, but it's a forced statement. You can almost feel their insincerity; if burning your hand on a stove hurts, then that thing must be eating them alive.

Without another word, you both duck under the tiny opening below the wall and move forward. They verbally wince behind you when they're forced to get down on all fours behind you, and all you can feel is guilt, guilt, guilt.

When a face appears in front of you for a split second before ducking away, it's all you can do to keep from screaming.

-

You go into the Prison Block first, seeing as you've already gotten Chara hurt enough for one day. The least you could do is take the upcoming punches firsthand.

The decapitated corpse that greets you is the same man who was brutally murdered by Walker not long ago; the fact that you witnessed this person murdered makes you sick. But you keep going.

The Block is overflowing with Variants, most sticking to their locked (some unlocked, you notice) cells and banging on the walls, some screaming obscurities that attempt to drown out other voices. None of them, you notice, dare to make an appearance in the light, and none seem to be too curious on your appearance. For the best, you suppose.

"I have an itch."

You turn to see a patient in shackles moving slowly towards you. You might be more concerned if his arms weren't entangled by nutlike devices that bind him down. Even face is wrapped snugly by bandages, so that when he talks, you can see his mouth struggling to push the words past the wrappings attempting to enslave him.

"Are you my friend?" His voice is resigned and passive; you're wondering how he's even speaking. What unnerves you is that he seems to be aware that you're there, despite his covered eyes, because when you move, he changes his walking position to where you are.

You look to see if Chara has made any comment on your new friend, but they seem to have withdrawn into their pain too much to truly notice.

You get an idea.

With a heavy sigh, you reach forward and steady the passive Variant. He perks up. "Friend?"

"Yeah, hold still," you grumble. You begin to navigate the buckles that hold him like a vice. If you could just undo one without freeing him completely, that would be dandy; who knows what he might be capable of without all that junk holding him down?

It's not hard to find a strap that you can unhook with ease. With a quick snap, you remove the wrapping and turn around to face Chara. 

Meanwhile, your friend behind you continues to trail where you're stepping. "Silky. You look so silly. Let me just... I need to tell you a secret."

You ignore the Variant's nonsensical bullshit and lean down to examine Chara's burn. They look at you oddly and notice the wrap you're holding.

"What's that for?" They ask unnecessarily. Like it would be for anything else.

As stated, you're not a doctor. You've never had a third degree burn, or whatever this injury could be diagnosed as. You don't know if you're doing the right thing, and maybe leaving it exposed to the air would be the proper treatment. But you can't let Chara walk around this place with an open wound.

And if you're honest with yourself, you don't want to look at it anymore. Every time you spot it, you feel nothing but guilt.

"I need you to hold still," you tell them. You both know what you're referring to, what you're about to do.

Chara's eyes widen. "No," they beg. "Please don't touch it. Please." Their tone is desperate enough to make you almost reconsider.

You grab their other shoulder firmly, and they almost cringe at your touch. "Kid, I'm not letting you walk around with that burn," you explain.

More gently, you add, "Let me help you."

At your tone, Chara seems almost lost. You wonder how many doctors before patched them up, but more roughly, without their permission. You don't even know if you're doing the right thing, but you can't live with yourself if you let their wound go untreated and you didn't make an attempt to help them.

Finally, they nod. "Okay," they murmur.

Behind you, the Variant pipes in. "Are you my friends?"

It's uncomfortable at first, trying to find the right approach in wrapping the wound. It's placed right on top of the shoulder, and you don't want to make any false moves in fear of irritating the flesh even more than you're about to. You push Chara gently closer to you so that you can adjust your angle.

"Please be careful," you hear them groan, barely audible.

You have to get this over with.

The kid visibly tightens as you press the bandage to their wound, but to their credit they don't complain. With quick sweeps of your arm, you tie the ends of the wraps together to secure them around the upper breastbone and under the armpit. You notice that Chara has almost crumpled into your chest, their head resting close to your throat. They're trying hard not to cry, you realize.

You gently pat their free shoulder. "How does that feel?" you ask them.

When they realize that you're done, they straighten their posture, almost relieved. They reach to touch their shoulder and wince at the snug bandaging.

"It's about as comfortable as it looks," they report with a grim frown. Admittedly, from the looks of it, not your finest work, but it'll have to do.

"Thank you."

As you straighten yourself up— and nearly bump into the friend behind you as he murmurs about how silky you are— you blink with surprise. This is the second time Chara has thanked you. Both times they're not looking you in the eye.

It's taking a lot of inner strength for this kid to work up the energy to thank someone. You don't know the specifics of how or why, but maybe the least you could do is take what you can get.

They catch your observant stare. "I...you helped me. A lot. And I don't know why," they explain hastily. 

You don't reply right away because of the Variant behind still clinging to your footsteps like a lost pet, and Chara take that as a sign to shake their head defeatedly, ending their sentimental speech.

"Are we there yet?" they try. Even when you could be nowhere close to where "there" is.

You look along the walls. "Let's head up and try to find a blood trail."

Chara sniffs. "Only thing we can do, I guess."

You both head along the edge of the prison block, all the while your friend following closely behind. It's a good thing he doesn't look like he can get very far on his own, because you're not sure how much more you can handle from his presence.

Chara looks behind to face the Variant. "Can we keep him?" They tease, but you notice that a ghost of a smile is spreading across their face. They're a trooper, you realize. They may be beaten to hell alongside you, but if they can keep it up, then so can you.

You walk along a line of stacked mattresses in hopes of finding some form of accessible path up to the upper cells. "Yeah, sure," you comment. "Let's make it a party, why don't we?"

Behind you, they give a small chuckle. "He's not trying to hurt us," they reason. "More people means more protection."

You spot a ledge up along the sides. It's reachable through the ladder of stained mattresses, and you give a disgusted scowl. It's not extremely sanitary, but in this place, it could be much worse.

For a brief second, you worry about Chara's shoulder and how it might be an inconvenience in stretching it upward to reach the ledge. But you have to take a chance.

You motion for them to follow your path up the mattresses. "Let's go up here and see what we can find." In a brief moment of concern, you add, "Are you going to be okay?"

A spark of automatic defiance has Chara straightening their posture. "I'll be fine," they protest. "Let's just find some blood and follow it!"

Despite, you give a scoff as you ready to grab the ledge above. "That's the best idea you've ever had."

-

Neither of you see the man reaching for your throat until it's too late.

You didn't pay too much attention to him at first— you were occupied with the Variants caged in shouting psychotic obscurities— but it's the millisecond after you notice the man hunched over in a chair that he jumps up suddenly, acknowledging your presence.

He attacks so instantaneously that you barely have time to defend yourself. It's instinct that saves your skin as you push back against his advances to choking the life out of you. Behind you, Chara flails against the man in a weak attempt to measure up to his strength.

"Get off of him!" You hear them shout, but to no avail.

Relief comes in an odd place. The prisoner trapped in the closed cell next to you grabs at the Variant, his bony arms putting up a surprising competition to clutching the man's clothing. The two writhe violently against the purled walls separating them before the prisoner is able to free his one arm to punch the man straight over the edge and into the prison ground below. He screams are cut short as his impact knocks him dead.

It happens so quickly, you barely have time to register the fact that you need to breathe until Chara tugs at your jacket in a panic.

"Hey! Are you okay?" they ask, panting. "I didn't notice him quick enough, that asshole."

You shake your head to come to, exhaling a breath. "Yeah," you mutter, then again, "Yeah I'm okay. Let's just keep a sharper eye out, okay?"

"Roger that." You notice that the kid is stepping forward to take the lead— possibly due to their night vision giving an automatic advantage amongst the shadowed corridors. You surprise even yourself when you find yourself pushing them back behind you.

Their eyes brighten with protest, but you explain quickly, "Let me take the lead. You keep an eye out on the sidelines."

Satisfied that you've given them at least a task, they nod in agreement. "Alright. Lead the way, captain."

Ahead of you is a close ledge where you assume you have to creep across. The tiny ledge is seated right in front of another cell, housing a Variant that is at the moment taking no notice of you. You don't feel any more relied upon this discovery. If he's anything like the other prisoner, you wouldn't put it past him to attack suddenly and without warning.

"All clear," Chara reports, eyeing the shadows one more time before joining you on the edge of the gap. Their face twists into disappointment upon analyzing the predicament. "Oh Christ, we're going to have to walk across that, aren't we?"

Below you, the screams of the walking damned illuminate your growing dread. But you move towards the gap anyway. "I'll go across and see if there's a way out," you decide.

"What about me?" There's something synonymous with irritation sharpening Chara's tone. They think that you don't believe they can handle it.

That's not true. You know they can, but...

You picture their horror in the decontamination room. You remember their sweltering burn. They're just a kid, under your supervision. If you lost them...

Well.

"Stay here and wait for me," you tell them. "If I find somewhere, then I'll call you over."

"Aww, am I growing on you?" Chara's teasing smile reassures you that all is well. It lightens your chest from a burden you didn't know you were carrying.

"Just stick around and pray that I don't fall to my death." You look down at the floor with a grim expression; the prisoner close to you is having some sort of seizure that doesn't provide you any reassurance.

"Have fun," the kid chirps, suddenly looking the tiniest bit relieved upon seeing the prisoner's recent frenzy that they're not going to approach him.

With a heaving sigh, you move forward.

You stick close to the prison cell, despite you practically feeling the tendrils of claws reaching for your neck. His garbled rage has you creeping slowly closer to what you assume is safer territory, but with a spark of panic you realize that the ledge cuts off abruptly. The skimpy floor you're standing on crumbles near a corner of the dark cells.

You have no other choice. You have to jump.

The man's cries behind you give you an instinctive running start and you jump forward, grabbing the ledge as your hands meet the cemented earth of a corner. Despite your stinging palms, you ignore your cracked ribs and aching body to heave yourself upward. You look back on Chara's tiny figure, observing you.

"Are you alright?" they call. To their credit they look actually concerned.

It has you swallowing up your panting breaths to answer back, calmly, "I'm alright. Just stay put, okay?"

"Hey Miles?"

You turn back. They don't usually call you by your name and it still makes you feel slightly odd when they do so. "Yeah?"

They hesitate. "Um... Be careful, okay?"

You stop. Actual anxiety over your wellbeing has you even more attached to this kid. They think you're something; whether a friend or a savior, they care about you. And it's not about just surviving anymore.

It doesn't relieve you, not at all. There's commitment and strings attached to many relationships you've encountered. But if you're to identify how you feel, it's not exactly a terrible emotion.

"I will," you reply. Then you walk off to avoid any other form of conversation.

You turn to encounter a white cell splattered in blood. Looks like you'll be exploring a while.

-

It's one document and one spontaneous attack later that you realize you're straying too far away from the kid.

There was no escape down from where you both were, and to leave them there now would be ridiculous, especially since the wanderers of the cells aren't exactly the most sane (one gave you a quick punch and ran off, leaving your ears ringing).

You train your vision to spot them, and when you see their silhouetted figure watching you in the distance, you cup your hands and give a shout, "Over here!"

They give you a thumbs up. "I see you!" they yell back, and you wince with the anticipation that they could be struck by making their presence known. Luckily, the Variants seem to be occupied in warning you of the Walrider to even notice them specifically.

"Do you want me to come over there?" they call, sounding a tad confused.

You give a quick observation around you. This seems to be the best place to approach, and there's another pathway you can cross up ahead with a similar concept of sneaking along the edge, this time with a more secluded prisoner behind it. It may end up being nothing, but it's better than keeping Chara over there without you, unsupervised.

(You refuse to admit that it's because you can't lose them.)

"Yeah," you reply. "This seems promising."

They seem to ponder for a second, glancing around— probably to recite your steps beforehand—before giving you what looks like a nod from this distance. "I'll be right over!"

You notice that the prisoner they're about to shuffle across hasn't finished his tantrum, and your heart picks up speed ever so slightly. "Be careful!" you find yourself shouting to them.

Chara pauses as they position themselves close to the corner. "I'll be fine!" they reply, almost amused.

You wait for a while, eyeing Chara closely, taking the time to actually listen to what the shouts and hollers of the Variants are actually saying.

"Don't you look at me like that!" One patient screeches to another below you. "Don't you fucking think you're fit to judge me, doctor. The well was always here, always poisoned!"

"These bars won't stop the Walrider!" Another prisoner claims, sounding almost terrified.

You reflect on their statements with a frown. The Walrider. You'd heard of Project Walrider, a name stated in a few of the documents you'd collected a while back. But what the project even was is beyond your knowledge. Whatever they were attempting with these patients, it was not with the mindset to make the mentally challenged better; if anything, they were making them worse.

But why? What is there to gain from making sick people even sicker? The fact that these patients seem to know more than you on why leaves you unsettled. They know what happened, what the Walrider even stands for, more than anybody. 

If only they could be in the state of mind to sit down with you for an interview, that would be fantastic.

"Hey!"

Chara's voice in front of you makes you jump. They run out of the shadows, having seemed to escape the Variant that was pacing the hallway and attacked you before.

They give you a welcoming grin. "Did you miss me?"

You look over at where you have to shuffle across the wall now, in front of a new prison cell holding another Variant. It's like this place was designed for your own personal torture.

"We're almost there," you promise. "I'll go first here."

"I figured," Chara says briskly. "Good luck."

You move forward slowly, like before, paying mind to the floor below. You remember the Variant who was pushed over the side, at a height not even as remotely as far up as you are. The vision of your body sprawled across the pavement below drives you forward.

The hands behind you grab you so quickly you can't even catch a breath.

Your heart stops in your throat, already preparing to go soaring over the ledge. You hold onto the arms with a vice grip, hoping to have some form of support holding you up from tripping. You'd rather choke to death than fall to it.

When you free yourself from his grasp, instinctively so, you grab onto the bars behind you again, using your grip to propel yourself away from his reaching hands and swing back to the other side of the prison cells. You barely have time to register what just happened, as it is stored away in the dark corners of your brain, where you can't effect on your near-death experience later.

Now you have to encourage Chara to get across.

You look back over where they stare at you, horror glistening in their wide eyes. "I'm okay," you reassure them, but they don't seem any more comforted; rightfully so, you suppose.

You creep closer to where the Variant is imprisoned and stand on the very corner of the thin ledge you just almost fell off of. "Just hold onto the bars," you instruct them. "I'll grab your hand, okay?"

Chara considers their options and hesitates a moment before exhaling a sigh. "Okay," they reply, secluded in fear. They inch closer to you, doing as you said and keeping a death grip on the bars.

You extend your arm as they shuffle towards you, all the while the Variant throwing a crazed fit so close to them that you could almost punch him in frustration. If he hurts that kid—

He lunges for them suddenly, and you give a shocked cry that escapes your throat before you can get a hold of your anxiety. Chara avoids their hands like you did, tripping and nearly falling as they keep mind of the Variant while reaching for you.

When their hand locks into your wrist, you pull them away rapidly as the prisoner takes another missed swing.

Both of you are breathless as you pull up and find yourself rubbing their back. They almost shrivel into your stomach, taking deep breaths that warm your shirt.

"Are you okay?" you ask.

The reply comes a bit delayed, but eventually Chara backs away from your hold and attempts to straighten back up. "I'm okay," they pant, almost unsure. They're probably just as surprised as you are that they survived that.

You open your camcorder back up to check the walls. Eventually you spot an open prison cell in the dark, where an odd hole near the floor resides.

"This way," you say, and Chara follows behind, still regaining their lost breath.

You crouch below the gap when you come to it, being greeted by a shaking man in a fetal position. His pale skin illuminates in your infrared, and his unnatural wounds give the sight a rather lurid approach. When you attempt to crawl to him, he flails in surprise before withering farther into the bed he's hiding under.

Behind you, Chara murmurs sympathetically, "Poor guy."

You'd love to feel sorry for the man too, if you didn't have places to be (and a kid to protect, your subconscious chimes in).

"Keep moving," you whisper, not wanting to alert the prisoner into hysteria. They do so without protest.

As you leave the cell, the man whispers, "We have faith in all the wrong things. And it will destroy us."

-

You jump down the bloody hole, regarding the area closely before giving Chara the all-clear to jump down alongside you.

There are two ways you could go. Either down the dark stairway behind you, or the stairway in front filled with gore and scrawled with writing on the walls you can't comprehend from this distance.

At the dark corridor, you turn to Chara. "Anything you can see down there?" you ask them.

They step towards the darkness, giving a thoughtful him as they seem to observe the shadows way too closely. You wonder if their night vision provides insight to what might be lying down there.

They turn back to you, looking pleased. "Yep," they confirm. "It's dark down there."

You don't even consider that the question was already destined to have a sarcastic answer; you're already shooting the smallest of glares. 

"Good one," you mutter.

"Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer," Chara replies with a toothy grin.

In the bloody room, something whispers.

You see a flash of black swirl in and out of existence for less than a second, but regardless, you were positive that something was there.

You turn to Chara. "Did you see that?"

They seem preoccupied with trying to find a better view of the dark room. "See what?"

"That...ghost thing."

"Ghost thing?" they repeat, curious. They scamper to your side, having abandoned the darkness. There's probably nothing down there anyway, you decide. Just follow the blood.

You shake your head as you head down the steps towards the gore. "It was probably nothing," you decide.

Chara seems more upbeat than you as you tread downwards. "Stay with me, Upshur," they tease. "I can't be the only sane person here."

You stop at the bottom of the steps before you can reply. "Walrider" is scratched in blood all across the lockers, alongside a symbol you don't recognize. In front, a pile of guts seeps blood all along the floor.

Even Chara seems at a loss for words. "'Walrider'?" they read, eyebrow raised. "What does that mean?"

You look around at the sight. It's unpleasant, to say the least, knowing what the other patients think of the Project Walrider. Whatever the Walrider was, or even the idea of it, it sucked up any form of sanity that was left in the priest and his followers.

No better time than to take out your notes to record it.

_The word "Walrider" is all over this place. Murkoff was running an experiment here called Project Walrider, but the patients talk about the Walrider like its a physical presence. A spirit or demon. Something they found in the mountain._

Chara has fallen to silence and waits for you to finish writing. You look briefly over at them; not once have you mentioned their travels with you in your notes. Maybe it's respect of not wanting to draw attention to them, or if it's because you just don't want to consider your relations with them as a whole. Either way, you think back on the whispering you swore you heard only a minute ago.

_I'd chalk it up to schizophrenic delusion, but I just saw something. Maybe. Maybe it's a glitch in the camera. Or maybe this place is getting to me._

You refuse to believe anymore of this spiritual nonsense. If Chara didn't see it, then you can pretend you didn't see it either. Of course you're on high alert, so you're bound to interpret a scary shadow for something at some point. You can ignore the whispering shadows for now for the sake of getting out of here.

Once you've vented about your questionable sanity in your notes, you snap the journal shut and motion Chara forward.

"Where are we going?" they ask.

"Wherever the blood tells us to go." It's all you can do for now.

Not too far away from the bleeding lockers, you spot a hole.

It's a much bigger hole than the gap in the cell. Okay, it's huge; takes up a good half of the empty room. But there's nowhere else to go; this is your only chance.

Chara seems to share your curiosity. "Where do you think this goes?" They gaze down at the hole, obviously using their built-in infrared to check for anything suspicious.

You scope out the corners of the room with no luck. It looks like, quite literally, you're now going down the drain.

"I guess we're about to find out," you sigh. You trudge downwards on the hard earth, ignoring the fact that these cemented rocks are burrowing you farther and farther down into this hellhole. The more you try to wriggle and squirm your way out of this place, the deeper you're sucked into it. Unwillingly, of course.

Chara stays behind you, peeking around corners and checking areas unbeknownst to you, which you're grateful for.

When you jump down far enough, you're able to catch lighting that blinds your infrared. It's silent, save for the sound of rushing water, which would be relaxing if you weren't literally in a giant sewer under an insane asylum.

"Wow, this is really draining," Chara comments.

"Not the time."

"You're just upset because I'm better at jokes than you."

"That's exactly why I'm upset."

You look around the quiet halls of the sewer. For some reason, the silence is foreign to you; you're expecting something to happen any moment now, and the more it doesn't, the more you worry.

Turning to Chara, you say, "Down the drain?"

They look around, unfazed by the darkness. With a grimace, they bury their socked feet into the water and give you a tight smile. "Follow the blood, down the drain. Only way out, right?"

You can keep going. You've still got batteries and some sanity left in you. The quiet can take a hike.

You both fall silent, your presence blending in with the noiseless chaos and rushing water, and move along.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alt: The sewers are a nice place to learn about tragic backstories

It's quiet.

And not just in the sewers, but in your mind as well. The terror and dread you've been feeling all night has numbed into an apathetic, almost deafening silence, and you're too tired to question it.

It doesn't matter what has happened and what will happen. This is about you now (and okay, the kid too), and for now you want to walk along in the only equivalence to tranquility this place will allow.

Through your still thoughts, you notice that Chara hasn't said anything either.

Naturally you turn to check on them, and you notice how glazed their eyes are, lost in thought. They walk in a fair pace behind you, occasionally sloshing water loudly that is bound to soak their socks even more, but overall their state is quiet, almost dark. 

It makes you uncomfortable to see them like this; in their eyes, they are older than they've ever been.

"How are you holding up back there?" You cut the silence short like a knife, your lonely voice echoing along the brick walls.

Chara doesn't look up immediately; they almost seem to have to shake themselves back into the present to register what you're saying. And when they resurface, their eyes are still hard. They squint at you.

"Miles, why did you come here?"

Their voice is resigned, almost broken. You almost stop right in your tracks, and your brain doesn't catch up with your mouth right away.

You state the obvious. "I came to report what was happening."

Chara shakes their head. "No," they protest, "like, _why_ did you come here?"

You don't respond. The water gets deeper.

"You know the rumors about Mount Massive Asylum and Murkoff," Chara continues. You're not looking back anymore, so you can only rely on their voice to assume their emotions.

"You know how bad it was. How Murkoff was...doing questionable things."

You don't even have to look back; their gaze almost pierces your spine.

"You shouldn't have come here," they say, something sharp in their tone. "Anyone with any sense would have stayed away. So why didn't you?"

The water gets deeper, coming up to your shins now. For Chara, their pants must be getting even more soaked.

You think. And you _really_ think for this one. But you already know the answer. Behind you, Chara is patient.

Finally, you speak. "I guess...I thought this would be a break, you know?"

They don't. You continue. "I was fired from my last job. I posted what they considered 'unacceptable' research for Afghanistan. And I suppose I wanted this story....to be a big reveal."

"So you're like that guy that knows too much of everything?" Chara pipes up.

You give a heartless chuckle. "Yeah, I guess you could say that."

It's another moment of quiet before you build up enough courage to look behind at where Chara is giving you a smile. But it doesn't meet their eyes.

"Well, if you get out of here alive, at least you'll have a shiny new story with enough hard evidence to go to everyone and say 'guess what, assholes.'"

At that, you return their smile. "That's the plan."

The sewer breaks into two pathways, and you look around. "Right or left?"

"Right."

It's another while of listening to the splashing currents and admiring the rummage floating in the muck before you find yourself continuing your story.

"I wanted to prove myself," you say, surprising yourself with your wistfulness. "I wanted to change at least something. And I guess I ended up deciding I could make my mark by breaking Murkoff."

Chara seems to move closer behind you, in an odd attempt at comfort. "You will," they promise, but they sound uncertain.

You peek over your shoulder to catch a glimpse of them and offer a half-smile. "Thanks for the encouragement," you tease.

"Well, you have me, dumbass." You hear a small little smirk creep into their voice. "And we've made it this far. I say we can make it."

Admittedly, they're right. You both have made it farther than you probably would have by yourself. Two is better than one after all; emotional attachment or not, having Chara around has cleared your mind and made the call for escape sharper than ever. Just the idea of having someone there with you and someone to fight for— and having someone fight for you in return for the mutual respect— is a beneficial aspect to have in this environment. From the looks of the patients, it doesn't look like they ally themselves without eating their partners an hour later.

As you round another corner, Chara breaks the silence again. "You know, you being a journalist was actually what made me want to help you."

You perk up slightly, curious now. "Oh?"

"Don't flatter yourself," they joke. "But I liked the idea of what you were doing. Telling people the truth."

You shrug. "People need to know. Even if they don't listen, regardless."

They're silent for a minute, thinking about your pessimistic claim. "True," they finally admit. "But it's hard to look away when Americans are mangling each other in a mental asylum. The world has to give a shit about that, right?"

They sound almost doubtful, and you don't blame them. You'd noted before how many had neglected Murkoff due to their terrors occurring outside of American's domain. If people missed the warnings of having Murkoff partnering with Mount Massive, you grimace, then they're certainly in for a shock when they realized their blissful ignorance cost many a gruesome fate.

Chara is a victim, you realize. And so is everyone else here. No one willingly obliged to this cruel experimentation, for whatever reason it previously served. Now, it's only used to harm people.

In the time you realize you have left to kill, you gain the courage to turn back to Chara and ask, "Why are _you_ here?"

They start. "Me?" they squeak, dumbfounded.

"Yeah, you." You take a quick check on your infrared in case a corpse decides to revive himself and attack. "You're not like them. You're not crazy. So how the hell did you get into this mess?"

They freeze, almost. Their eyes go wide, and they blink rather quickly, like they're pushing back tears. 

"You," they whisper, sounding like you've derived them of their voice, "You don't think I'm crazy?"

You blink. The first time you encountered Chara, it was basically instinctive to label them as crazy. There was a reason they were here, weren't they? Why they were enrolled in an asylum?

You find yourself replying, "Answer the question." Like the asshole you are.

Chara hesitates a while, then a longer while, enough for you to wonder why these sewers are so damn big. When they answer, their voice is small, almost fragile enough for you to crack it with one touch.

"My parents signed me up for the Morphogenic Program for profit," they murmur, and bitterness on the thought of their parents has your stomach churning.

But still you ask, "The what?"

"The Morphogenic Engine," they explain. "It's a machine that shows images to make the patients go..." They twist their index finger next to the side of their head.

_It makes people go crazy._

You don't know how to even register how sick and wrong that is. It shows on your face, because when Chara catches sight of your reaction, they give a smirk.

"Fucked up, isn't it?"

No reply. What do you say?

They continue regardless. "So after my shitty parents signed me up, they showed me the images, you know. Expected me to go crazy in the next hour. But..."

Chara pauses, suddenly uncomfortable. They look away from your gaze and find interest in the sewer walls. "It turns out I'm immune."

You blink. "Immune to what?"

They sigh, defeated and rather tired. "The treatment," they murmur. "They showed me that film for hours. Nothing. The only thing that drove me insane was boredom."

_Oh._

Words and thoughts fall together into nonsense in your scrambled brain. All the information you've been given might as well have gone in one ear and out the other, with how you have little to no grasp on what to say or do.

"So you..."

Chara nods, obviously finding more meaning in your pitiful attempt to speak than you did. "I'd watch patients come in, looking as fine as the mentally ill can be, and they'd come out just..." 

Their eyes are taking a special interest in the water splashing around their moving feet. Their expression is somber.

"It wasn't pleasant," they finish, faltering.

Murkoff made these poor, neglected patients into monsters. Something stirs up inside of you, channeling an emotion similar to anger. Anger that this happened. Anger that this was allowed to happen. It's not right, and you shouldn't have to be the only person in the world to prove that.

Chara looks back up at you, almost close to tears. "Sometimes," they whisper, "I wish the treatment worked, Miles. Does that make me a bad person?"

"No." You find your voice, firm and fixated on the kid. The instinctive remark your brain immediately made was that Chara wasn't a bad person. And they're not. The treatment was suicide, sealing a fate that the patients never had choice in. In a way, their response is understanding.

They don't seem to take notice of your claim and instead look away again, focusing back to where you're still walking. Who designed these sewers to be so long and empty in the first place?

"They'd always say that I was wrong because the treatment wasn't working," they explain. You grit your teeth. _Those bastards._ "I think that they were going to do something really bad to me. They kept telling me that I was going to be 'fixed' or 'altered' or something." 

They give a weak scoff, as though to add some form of humor into the mix. "In truth, I think they were just going to kill me."

Your heart skips a beat automatically at the thought of seeing Chara on an autopsy, having their brain dissected for a problem that wasn't even a problem.

"But I think you know how well that turned out," they conclude grimly. "The riots happened, and they didn't even have time to put their plan into motion."

You remember the soldier's dying words in the library. _They got out. The Variants._

So that's what he meant. Riots. Rebelling against the cruel abuse because no one else was taking a stand.

If that's the case, then that explains the fresh blood and bodies. So much can happen within mere hours. It couldn't have been more than a week that the riots even occurred. How long has it been for the Variants and their newfound freedom? A couple of days? Maybe even hours?

You pass a corpse with a tight frown, and sickness swirls with chagrin in your stomach. Amazing how much can go wrong in a matter of time. These patients weren't messing around. They were angry, and if Chara isn't lying (which they would have no reason to), then they had every right to be.

The fact that you're actually gaining sympathy for the Variants makes you uneasy. You've been trapped in here for way too long.

"Want to hear a fun fact?" Chara chimes in again. "You're the only person who's never called me bad or crazy."

It's not exactly what you would consider a "fun" fact. You look back at them, feeling pity rise unwillingly in your chest. 

"I told you before that you belonged in here," you comment, unable to grasp that you're the only person Chara has, even before their visit to the asylum.

They nod thoughtfully. "You did," they agree, "And don't get me wrong, that was an ass move on your behalf. But." 

They gesture to their bandaged burn. "You helped me. And you haven't gotten rid of me yet. No one has ever stuck around me for this long."

You don't know what to say to that. There's no more running from it now, no matter how much you want to. Forming a relationship— and dare you say friendship— is the one conflict you didn't assume you'd have to face in a decrepit asylum. But here you are, being told that despite being a shitty person sometimes, you're all that someone has. And you don't know how to process this information correctly.

Maybe evading monsters in the sewers was not an ideal place to bond with a child. But then again, what do you know?

You crouch down a hole in the wall. Only way to go now. You motion Chara forward wordlessly, knowing that once again, you're being a giant pain in the ass by not addressing the elephant in the room. But you're not usually labeled an emotional guy. 

Besides, this is quite literally a matter of life or death, and as peaceful as the sewers are from the storm above, you need to find a way out.

As you surge towards the light at the end of the tunnel, deliberately ignoring your soaking torso and arms, you see it again. The shadow.

It's louder now, the whispers. And it looks more like a ghostly form than a shadow. But it was there, no mistake about it. You could blame it on the darkness, or blinking, or a trick of light. It was there, whatever it was.

The shadow brings forth a feeling of fresh horror, newly uncovered and almost raw. Like the ghost was a physical embodiment of terror, and maybe it was. You find your breath your throat, and soon your vision is black from the threat of suffocation.

Chara coughs. "What's the holdup?"

You turn back, where even if you can't see them clearly through the dark, the pinpricks of their eyes remind you of their night vision. "Did..." you start, then try again, "Tell me you saw that this time."

"What?" They sound incredulous. "Are you talking about that ghost you thought you saw a while back?"

"Yes!" You exclaim, and you flinch at your voice. Softer, you add, "I swear to god that wasn't a shadow."

Chara takes into account your claim, but seems dismissive in their short reply. "This place is creepy as shit," they argue. "No wonder you're seeing things."

You'd agree if there wasn't this fear, whirring the inner circuits of your brain. It's a raw new emotion, some new layer of terror that you've unlocked upon seeing the ghost's presence.

"I'm not seeing things," you protest sharply. "There's something here."

At your tone, Chara ponders. "Maybe there is," they conclude, "and maybe there isn't. Look, can we just go? You're holding up the line."

Their impatience emits from you an irritated grunt, but you do as you're told. Besides, there's reason in their argument. Not that you're seeing things— which you're _not_ — but in the only sensible thing to do is to keep moving.

You begin to trudge forward again, to where the ghost had appeared, and where it's now long gone. Upon exiting the small hole, you stand up to give yourself an achy stretch. Chara mimics your actions, exhaling a relieving breath as they pull their arms.

"Ugh, I think I've crawled through enough tight spaces for one lifetime," they groan, their expression tightening with discomfort as they stretch their limbs. 

You can relate, and end up extending your arms a good length from your face, hearing them crack with exhaustion.

"Ending our previous conversation," you begin, suppressing a yawn from pure depletion, "would an apology work for me calling you a patient here?"

Chara gives you a glance as they look around the area you're now located. "Probably not," they reply airily. "But points for effort."

You scoff. "Points for not being a total asshole?"

"Oh, you're always going to be an asshole," they joke, giving you a good-natured grin. "But you're an asshole with a heart."

Looks like the only place to head is down another set of tunnels. Your knees are sore from crouching on disjointed cement, not to mention a good portion of your outfit being doused in filthy water. Unfortunately, you conclude, things are going to get worse before they get better. There's a reason you haven't attempted to look in any mirrors lately.

"This way, then?" You turn to Chara finishing up their small yoga session.

They look up at a broken ladder, too fragile for either of you to even consider giving it a shot. "Unless you want to stick around and try this ladder."

"Pass." You walk ahead, automatically taking the lead. The maze of sewer hallways escalating your complexity on how to even get out of this asylum. 

Why did they even make this place so damn big?

Along the wall, you spot a document. You don't even want to question how it got down here; you just nab it without argument.

Chara observes your actions curiously. "A document?"

You probe the page inside, looking for answers. Instead you find more questions.

The Gospel of Sand?

Investigating the nonsense further, you learn that Father Martin has quite a way with words. He almost makes the statement that the Walrider is a spiritual god believable. Demanding that the blind prophets see what is right in front of them; that they are summoning some form of savior, only known in bibles.

Maybe this is the priest's coping mechanism for hopelessness; maybe the voices in his head are loud enough to convince him that this is what the "lord" Walrider wants.

_Merciful God, you have sent me an apostle._

So that's the game then. Being played by a delusional man to appease a being labeled as god. 

Up ahead, there's a tight space for you to squeeze through. That's all you need to focus on. Not the Morphogenic Engine, not the Walrider, not even Chara's immunity to insanity. You just have to go. If you let the true weight of everything happening sink in, you wouldn't get anything done.

Chara waits for you to shove away the file with a concerned gleam in their eyes. "You okay?"

You wonder how much is showing on your face. How tired you're becoming.

Yet you mirror Chara's false strength and find yourself positioning your stance more upright, plastering a firm determination on your facial features.

"It's nothing," you lie. "Keep moving."

"Are you Upshur about it?"

"One more joke about my name and I'll leave you in the sewers to rot."

They give a short laugh. "You wish. Can't get rid of me that easily, mister reporter."

(Truthfully, you know you can't. You both are in this for the long haul; it's only fair.)

((Truthfully, you don't want to lose the only person you really have in here.))

Chara goes first, after giving an all-clear, and slips more easily than you into the next area. It's a huge room, so that you can't see the end of the corridor. Junk litters the floor, but there's no water, so you guess you're grateful for that.

On the right side of the wall, you spot a sewer to conveniently crawl down. Naturally, you head there; only way to go, right? You can only get so lost in the sewers.

Chara reaches the hole before you and makes a move to climb down the ladder, but in the darkness they interpret something that has them backing away in disappointment.

"What's wrong?" You ask.

They give a downhearted frown and gesture back to the drain. "It's flooded," they report. "We'd have to drain it out first."

You bite back a groan. That's what you get for having a peaceful minute in here for more than five seconds.

Luckily, for such occasions of draining out a system, there's a map on the opposite wall near the hole's location. You walk over to the map, examining it. It's directing you to two gas pumps, one for male drain and the other for female drain. Each has a colored line leading you to their locations.

You look down the empty, large hallway. "It seems safe to split up," you observe. "I'll take one drain, you take the other."

Chara glances at the map, studying each location, and nod. They point down the hallway, to something too far away for you to interpret properly (you wonder if the doctors enhanced their normal vision as well).

"I'll do the male drain," they decide, referring to wherever they're pointing. "You can have the pleasure of doing female."

"Joy," you grumble. Looking at the map, it looks like you'll be heading left while they're heading right. You shove down your worry of separation; it's not like you're being stalked in here, right?

A noise echoing through the hallway has you shoving that thought back down your throat and wallowing in your stomach. Serves you right for getting cocky.

In the distance, chains rattle.

Your heart drops. How did he even...?

You don't have time to figure it out. You shove Chara and yourself down behind a stack of barrels and wood. Walker's grunts mirror around the hallway, but it sounds like he's a fair distance away. What does he even want from you? Doesn't he have other people he can decapitate elsewhere?

Chara peeks over a barrel they're crouched against, ducking back down when they hear Walker grunting a good way down the corridor.

"He can't get us both," they whisper. "If we both find the drains at the same time, he can only go after one."

It hits you that they're implying that if all else fails in the end, one of you will die and the other will move on.

(You don't admit it, that you want them to be the first to walk through those exit doors.)

"We'll both make it," you whisper back, firmly as though to comfort yourself too. "I'll see you back here."

Your tone ends the conversation; to you, it's not up for discussion anymore. Both of you have to make it all the way through.

They detect your determination, and they give you a nod with hardened eyes. "Okay," they say, calm. Their gaze is a fiery one, ready to face the next challenge ahead and to get out alive.

You share their sudden courage with your heartbeat racing. Perseverance courses through your weary bones, regaining strength that you thought you'd lost a while back. You're going to beat Walker. You're getting out of these sewers.

And then Chara is gone. They sneak to a spot across from you, slipping across the floor like liquid. You marvel at their sly figure; no wonder they've never been caught.

You notice them grab a piece of garbage tucked away in one of their pockets. Some bait for Walker, you guess.

As the chains fade away into a separate area, you call to Chara in a hushed tone, "Hey kid!"

They look over at you with surprise. "Yeah?"

"Be careful."

Chara pauses, blinking a moment in what looks like shock, before you see it. A genuine smile. Their eyes are brighter now than they've ever been, like your words have united a special form of bravery that they had yet to truly uncover.

"I will," they reply, rather earnestly. "I'll see you soon."

Before you can register what just happened, and how the hell you managed to ever give a shit about this kid's wellbeing, they're gone. And you're alone again, in the sewers.

You look up at the ceiling, enlightened by bright lightbulbs that seem to give an eerie air to the atmosphere. It's there that you've never noticed, amongst the distant chains of Walker and the dripping of the drains, how quiet everything is.

The silence is painful when you're alone.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alt: It's taken seven chapters for this man to slowly realize that this strange kid is growing on him, meanwhile things spiral downward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> halfway there!

It's not hard to find the valve for the female drain. The hardest part is closing the door behind you. You know that if— and when— Walker breaks it down, he's not going to have a lot of trouble finding you hiding in this cramped room.

It's either sit in a dark corner of the room and wait him out, or you open the door and make a run for it. Both would have dire consequences if you happened to be caught. But you have to make this decision by yourself, with no backup or verbal support to assist you. So what do you do?

Staying and waiting for death doesn't do your thumping heart any justice. So you run.

You refuse to look back once you fling the door open and throw yourself into the fog. The feeling of bloody claws gripping your throat, squeezing the life out of you, drives you to flail around in the mist enough for you to decipher where the hallway ends and where you turn sharply around a corner. You haven't stopped to give yourself a rest, your heart pumping enough blood into your racing legs to make them almost visibly throb. But you eventually find yourself back in the wide corridors, where you expect Chara to be waiting.

When you turn into the hiding spot behind the boxes, safe from Walker's vision, your heart does an unexpected plummet into your stomach when you see that Chara's not there with you. But Walker's distant grunts don't sound like one of a hunter chasing prey, and the concept of abandoning your compromised plan to go and search for them isn't attractive, so you stay put.

Besides, Chara's clever. And small. They can evade Walker easily, you remind yourself. If they were in trouble, you would probably be able to hear the struggle from here.

As you ponder, waiting, you notice a glimpse of rusty-brown barreling into another area behind you, quickly escaping your field of vision. But it was there.

Patiently, Chara creeps towards you, looking this way and that. You notice that they're holding something shiny in their tight little palm, but upon further inspection it's just a piece of who-knows-what, used to distract Walker.

They lock eyes with you, and something brightens their gaze, darkened with concentration. They scamper to your side immediately, daring to give a confident grin. "All clear," they whisper. "It should be drained out by now."

You look over your hiding space to hear for Walker, or to see a towering silhouette through the fog. No, it looks like it's alright for now. If you were to go, now would be the time to do it.

Wordlessly, in fear of making noise, you motion for the drain behind you. Chara nods and follows you to the giant hole. Your observance of the area is locked in overdrive as Chara heads down the ladder, and you notice their face twisting with disdain as their hand comes into contact with the slimy bars of the structure.

Heart racing, enough to make you just barely twitch, you follow them down when you're confident that you won't step on their fingers. The security that the drain provides grows as you shimmy further down the ladder, mindful of the watery texture that may result in an accidental trip.

The farther you go, the more that the enlightened circle above you shrinks, there's a sense of relief that you've escaped one enemy, but there's also the familiar sense of dread. The more you struggle to escape, my the more entangled you feel like you're becoming. You might as well be on your way to Wonderland, as far as you can tell. How did it even end up like this anyway?

Chara's voice snaps you from your spiral. "It's okay down here too," they report, and you feel grateful that you don't have to worry about being attacked for now. In a sewer so big that no one will find your dead body.

The stench is stronger farther down, and you wrinkle your nose instinctively. It's pitch black save for your infrared; once activated, you notice Chara eyeing a dead body, his upper body plunged into the thick river that separates you from him. Upon inspection, you gawk at his extremely broken foot.

"How did he get down here anyway?" Chara asks; their voice is barely above a whisper due to the sound carrying through the sewers; you're glad that they're still mindful of danger.

You shrug, despite your own interest. "I guess these Variants get around."

Chara stops a small laughter as it bounces through the darkened corridors. "That's one way to describe them," they grin. "Hopefully we'll only see dead ones."

The sewers are dark and damp, as expected. But the problem is that it's just as big as before, and even more flooded. It's a good thing that you can still walk across the the ledge stretching out to a corner, and you have enough batteries to not worry too much for a while, if you can get out quickly.

You guess there's no other option but to simply find a way out of the sewers, ground zero. You motion Chara to walk behind you, and they keep their eye on the drowned Variant; you don't wish to pry, but despite their humor on dead Variants, there's something awful close to sympathy as they tear their eyes away from the body.

As you round the corner, Chara makes a sound that has you following their gaze upward, to where another corpse slumps across a pipe on the ceiling. Even you find yourself raising a curious eyebrow.

"Wonder how that happened?" You voice aloud.

This time, Chara answers, "I don't know." To which you find yourself surprised.

"No puns?" You tease. And they attempt to give you a playful smile, but it's too strained.

"I guess not," they respond quietly.

You don't question it— and it's not because you need a laugh right now, however corny or forced it may be— and jump over a row of pipes blocking the way, dripping with a moldy substance you might recognize if you were a scientist. Chara hops over with a bit more of a fight, due to their height, by before you can reach out to help, they straighten and surge forward to join you.

Another corpse greets you, but this time you don't question it. Chara says nothing either, instead looking more grim as they avoid stepping on the body and don't bother looking back on it.

Ahead, a sudden burst of a pipe has a smokey haze hissing at you, but you avoid it. If anything, you might as well take it as a sign that you're going in the right direction. If something attempts to scare you, you decide, you're probably doing it right.

After jumping over another few pipes, you notice that the sewers has drawn to a close. You're at a dead end, being greeted by another ladder. No place to go but up.

Chara motions to the ladder. "Shall we?"

You nod. "I'll go first."

"As suspected."

You grab onto the rails, grateful that you're prepared for the slippery surface with a death grip, and make your way up. A little farther down, Chara follows.

As you escalate upward, a face peers down at you.

You pause, heart beginning to regain speed, and step back one. Behind, Chara makes a noise of protest.

"If it's another ghost, I swear to god--"

"It's not," you retort, as the man disappears back upward. You'll take it as a sign that you're not interesting enough to be slain; it's the least you could do to avoid being stuck on this ladder forever.

"It was nothing," you finally lie, more so for your benefit.

"Alright," Chara concedes, sounding somewhat impatient.

You climb back up, and as you reach the top, you dread being grabbed by the neck, or pushed back down the ladder, or probably worse. There's no way that man could have just disappeared like that. Unless it was just an illusion and you really are going crazy.

When you peer over the ledge, you're surprised to find that the man is gone. But you don't feel anymore relieved. You make haste to exit the drain so that Chara can as well. When they join you, they comment, "At least it's brighter."

They're not wrong, so you turn off your camera's infrared to avoid being blinded in the normal lighting. Looks just like the sewers Walker's probably still pacing around in.

You look back at Chara, noticing how they seem to run their injured arm with a wince. Their shoulder must be killing them, with having to reach upward in order to climb that ladder.

"How's your shoulder holding up?" you check in.

They give you a glance that shares a fair amount of personal agony. "I want to amputate it," they admit with a groan. "But it's fine, probably."

You frown. "Probably?"

"Okay, definitely not," they sigh, defeatedly glaring at their bandaged burn. "Nothing we can do about it though."

"Not in the sewers," you reply. "When we get out, we'll get someone to look at it."

"Whatever." Chara abandons tending uselessly to their shoulder, instead rounding a corner to indicate that it's time to move forward. "Worry about me later, mister mother. Let's head this way."

You trail behind, taking the lead when you catch screams in the distance. Too far away for you to worry, but horrifying enough for you to wonder what's going on. It sounds as though someone is being attacked, by a force you can't overhear. You'd dare to even ponder on the idea of a ghost, if you can't already hear Chara's annoyed tone in your thoughts, snapping you out of it.

Common sense. You just need to keep hold of your common sense, is all.

The door to your left is locked, as usual. So you make haste to quickly move towards where you expect the source of the screaming to be coming from. Luckily, they're becoming more and more strained, until eventually they perish. You shouldn't feel relieved, but you do. If whatever ripped those men apart is distracted enough with their recent kill, maybe you'll have nothing to worry about.

"What was happening to them?" Chara wonders aloud, confirming that you're not just imagining voices in your head.

You shake your head. "It's not any of our concern. It's far away."

Chara gives a considerate hum. "Sound sure carries in an empty sewer," they murmur.

You carry on, twisting and turning through a dim lit trail, minding the water splashing your shoes. The screams are gone now, nothing more than a memory. The only creepiness of the area is the long hallway, trailing down farther than where your eye can decipher the ending of the tunnel. But there are no doors on the side where someone can jump out of, so you feel as secure as you allow.

Eventually you break into a faster pace, without complaint from Chara who picks up your idea. The silence is nice, but it would be nicer to just be out of this place in general.

As you reach the far ending of the tunnel, something echoes in the sewers. A voice. A song.

In the darkness ahead, the swinging light of what seems to be a lantern illuminates itself, and you assume that the man singing is the holder of the light source. It's a fairly peaceful tune, but you don't like it. The man could just be luring you into a false sense of security before a brutal killing. Maybe he was responsible for the dying men you heard earlier.

Chara perks up, eyeing the darkness. You look at them curiously. "What is it?"

They squint their eyes. Something in their gaze doesn't assuage you. Then they whisper, hesitantly, "It's the priest."

Father Martin? Is he following you around in the sewers now?

You notice a door right beside you, and you grab Chara's arm. Whatever Father Martin has planned, you don't feel like being around to find out if he's going to knock you unconscious again and send you into another part of the asylum. "In here!" you order, briskly entering the hazy room and closing the door behind you.

Among the fog that hangs over the room, unfriendly to your eyesight, you spot a twitching man. He resides at the far end of the hall, and when he sees you, he doesn't come after you. Instead, he seems as welcoming a Variant can be.

"You don't have to be afraid of me," he greets you, with a stammer in his voice. "I can tell we're the same. You still know what's real."

You raise an arm to where Chara is behind you, protecting them in case the Variant decides to strike. You dare to creep the slightest bit closer and break out your camcorder, just in case what he says is actually useful.

"The doctor's dead," he begins, his voice shaking; maybe he's struggling to maintain a grip on reality and is only breaking through insanity to tell you this. "You know that, right? Dr. Wernicke. Died before he even started working here."

You remember a couple of files you'd picked up a while back, addressing Dr. Wernicke, something related to nazism. You'd decided right there that whoever this doctor was probably didn't have the most stable morals. Especially if his plan had something to do with the Morphogenic Engine that Chara was talking about, and something you now recall skimming over in some other patient files.

The Variant looks at you directly, rather than Chara, seeming almost confused at his own words. In a sense, he looks somewhat like Frankenstein, with his square build and exposed brain on the side of his head. His twitching hasn't ceased since he started talking to you.

"What kind of experiments does a dead doctor perform on living patients?" His asks, voice still stumbling in several syllables. "That's the question."

And then he's done, unmoving, still staring at you, waiting to solve his riddle.

You feel a somber emotion stretching your tightened frown. When you conclude that this Variant isn't going anywhere, you shut off your camera and take out your journal to voice your thoughts.

_The patients know Dr. Wernicke is dead. One patient asks me, "What kind of experiments does a dead Doctor perform on living patients?"_

This all has to be connected to something, and you know it. You remember the Prison Block, where everywhere was evidence of the Walrider, whatever it stood for. It scared patients, drove them mad enough for them to scribble the name across the walls like it would protect them. It drove the priest into a delusional frenzy of religion.

You don't understand. Whatever the Morphogenic Engine performed had to be tied in with some sort of purpose. But what was the point of all of this?

_What is PROJECT WALRIDER?_

You feel a small tug on your shoulder sleeve, where behind your arm, Chara looks at you with earnest bemusement. "What's he talking about?" They murmur, with a small voice as though not to disturb the Variant in case he snaps.

Does Chara not know about Dr. Wernicke? How long have they been in here? How long have the other patients been in here to gain this sort of knowledge?

You notice to the side of you that there's another large draining hole where you can climb down. "I'll explain later," you promise. "Down here."

At the bottom of the tunnel, you notice a light. It's better than darkness, you decide. You end up going first, just in case the light is deceiving, but once you climb down, all is well. You honestly didn't expect too much commotion in a sewer.

Unlike the other areas of the sewers, this water is tainted with blood. Red floods across the floor, and your nose wrinkles at the metallic stench that the liquid now carries.

Chara makes a disgusted noise behind you. "Oh, _gross_!" They groan, and you look down at their bare feet, covered with only thin black socks. "I'm so sick of seeing blood everywhere."

You grimace yourself. This outfit of yours is definitely going to the cleaners. "You're not the only one."

Ahead is somewhat directional signs. "Female Ward" and "Male Ward". You don't recall seeing any females amongst the Variants, and you can't help but think negatively on what may have happened to them.

You turn back to Chara. "Which way should we go?"

Chara shrugs, looking half amused. "It's not like I really have a preference."

That was a gender joke, and you know it. Admittedly you walked into that one like a pole, but you still heave a sigh to indicate that any other humorous replies will not be welcomed.

"Male Ward," you conclude.

Chara laughs. "Well, I guess we know where your priorities lie then."

"I'd rather not be maimed by insane women, thank you very much."

"And insane men are better because...?"

You don't admit that it's because if you haven't seen any females in the Ward, that you can only let your mind wander on what may or may not have occurred to cause their disappearance. And in all honesty, you don't want to get involved with what's going on over there, if anything even is. Better to go with the familiar.

In front of you, a body drops from the ceiling, but you avoid it; old news anyway.

"Because we can navigate the Male Ward quicker," you try to explain. "It's not unknown to us, like the Female Ward is."

As you enter another long hallway, dim with the hue of the blood water, Chara scoffs behind you. "Typical, ask the homosexual reporter what his preferred Ward will be. He'll give it to you straight."

"Straight as he can, anyway," you chime in without thinking, and immediately you cringe at participating in a joke because Chara begins to giggle so loudly that you begin to grow concerned that somebody may hear. 

They eventually conclude their mini laughter session with a snort, and you suppress another sigh of exhaustion. But you still remember that this is a child, exposed to trauma not even adults in a lifetime would be introduced to. 

If they want to laugh at a stupid joke you made, you guess you can grant them the luxury this one time, when danger doesn't seem to be lurking around the corner at this very moment.

Ahead, it's dark again. And another sign on the wall promising you that you're going the right way to the Male Ward.

You head right, and you hear scratching.

It's inhuman and right behind a door that you hope is locked when you approach it. It's so close to you that if someone sprinted out right now and clawed your throat open, you wouldn't be too surprised.

Chara comes up from behind and seems to gravitate closer to your back. You look at their eyes, wide with concern, all attention on the dented door, where something behind it is waiting.

You notice another small space you can squeeze under. Not ideal, in the red waters, but it's better than whatever fate awaits you behind the only door around. You give Chara a small tap to acknowledge where you're headed, and they nod, keeping their eyes firmly locked on the door while you crouch under.

As expected, your hands and arm sleeves become drenched with water, but luckily the thick texture that blood is associated with is drained out, making it equivalent to food coloring. But still, not appealing. Chara crouches down and follows you as you bring the camera back to your eyes, but they don't bother complaining about having to crawl through a bloody river.

The narrow tunnel is much longer than you wanted it to be, and your knees are getting sore from having to scuffle across brick floors. You twist and turn through the tunnel as much as possible, with Chara being silent due to them not having too much advantage with their night vision in this situation. Not when your infrared, charged with only two batteries left, still holds promise.

Behind you, Chara begins to softly hum, "Rain, Rain, Go Away."

You don't bother turning, since you're cramped up against brick walls in here, enough for you to contemplate claustrophobia. "Is a musical note really necessary?" you ask.

They pause their tune. "It is when you're traveling with the most boring journalist alive. You have to have a soundtrack of _some_ sort."

"Boring?" you repeat.

"Yeah, boring. I bet your favorite color is grey."

"It's blue."

"Really?" Chara oddly perks up, seemingly suddenly interested in the idea of colors. "Mine is green. Like limey-green."

At that, you find yourself entering a much bigger room, so that you can stand up and stretch your sore muscles. The dim lighting of the area would be merciless with your infrared, so for now you trust your instincts that have you hopping around a couple of thick pipes until you reach a ground floor. Chara mirrors your steps with much more ease; the darkness is nothing to them, you remember.

They look around. "Where are we?" they ask, confused.

You're wondering the same thing. Wherever you are, you're farther away from any exit doors. You're buried underneath Mount Massive more than you ever wanted to be.

There's a door to your right, right across a wooden bridge between the pipe works. You head there; maybe there's something.

When you open the door, there's a hiss, and an arm flails out from an opening through broken wood. The Variant behind the imprisonment is probably not hiding anything important, but you still gawk at his mutilated teeth that seem to be sewn together.

Chara comes up behind you and looks across your elbow. "Aw, you woke him up," they say teasingly.

You slam the door shut on the Variant without another thought. One less problem that you don't need to be worrying about.

"Well," you sigh, turning back around to where you spot another door, "now he can sleep for as long as he wants."

When you open the next door, you're glad to find that there's not another boarded-up patient waiting to try and claw your face off. Instead, it's pitch-black, but the depth of the echo the creaking door has on the area promises a much larger room than before.

You switch on your infrared and find yourself walking across a fairly loud bridge, sparing you from falling into the murky waters below.

Your hope of avoiding being drenched again is short-lived when, up ahead, you notice the bridge you're walking on coming to an abrupt halt.

"Oh, great," you audibly grumble.

Chara peeks at you from the side. "Troubles?"

"Looks like we're about to go in the water again."

They give a trademark smirk. "Is the famous investigative reporter Miles Upshur afraid of getting soaked?" they tease.

"At least I have the decency to wear shoes," you remark, granting a brief gaze at their dirty socks.

Chara scowls. "There was a _riot_ ," they argue. "It's not like I had much time to think about footwear."

You prepare your camera in your hands for when you impact the water, and then you jump downwards. The splash that follows bounces around the dark sewers, and you can't help but cringe at the thought of attracting anyone to your location. But for now, you don't blame the Variants for avoiding this area. The water you're treading through has a slimy undertone to it.

Above you, you notice that Chara is hesitating. You look up at them. "It's fine," you call up. "Come on down."

They shuffle their feet rather anxiously, looking uncomfortable, and you start to feel like you know where this is going.

Chara looks at you with a panicked expression. "Okay, confession time," they admit, holding up their hands in sudden defense. "But first, you have to promise not to get mad at me."

 _Oh no._ You furrow your brows. "You can't swim, can you?"

"I'm sorry!" They blurt out, almost more instinctively than resistive. "I didn't know the water was going to be that deep!"

You feel the urge to pinch your nose with your fingers as a sign of frustration, but it'd be pointless. It's not like learning to swim is a requirement, and since the water is reaching your middle chest, of course Chara would have to be able to at least know how to float first.

But you don't have time to teach them. So instead, you outstretch your arms and promise, "Come down. I'll catch you and you can ride on my back."

You can't see them without your night vision pressed to your face, but you can imagine their eyes glowing with almost a humorous emotion.

"Are you seriously offering me a piggyback ride?" They ask, somewhat amused.

You bite your tongue in fear of making a sharp comment at their lack of gratefulness. "Just get down here," you order. "The water's fine."

They seem to wait another moment, and you're thinking of snapping when you hear them shuffling down as quickly as possible, before you catch their shadow taking off and they fall into your open arms, splashing you in the face with the swamp-like water.

When they realize that they're unable to touch the floor, they seem to almost flail in panic before grabbing an automatic hold of your neck and pressing themselves into your chest. You almost start at the gesture, before remembering that Chara is literally freaking out, and you try to coax them into abandoning their death grip on your arm.

"I got you," you promise, patting them on the back. "You're fine."

Into your throat, Chara murmurs, "I know, I know."

They give you a final squeeze before making haste and climbing to your back, where they properly adjust themselves onto your hold. You position their body into one arm, thanking the water for being able to take some of their weight off your back, and in the other you adjust your camcorder.

"Ready?" You ask them.

You feel them nod. "Ready."

So you move forward.

-

Not even a minute after something falls from the oozing ceiling do you notice an area above you. _An exit?_

It's not easy for you to climb up, with Chara holding onto your neck like a vice, but you manage to jump upward and grab a hold of the ledge without exhibiting too much discomfort as they tighten their grip on you. With a breathless grunt, you trudge upward and find yourself on another catwalk.

Chara lets themselves off your back, and you take a minute to breathe. They graciously rub your spine. "Too heavy for you, old man?"

You straighten up and hear a crack in your backside somewhere. "I think I'll manage. And you're welcome," you add shortly.

They give a huff. "Fine. Thank you, Mister Upshur. To what do I owe the honor?"

You peer down the twisting bridge, noticing a thin light in the shape of a slightly open doorway. "You can shush for a minute as I check out this room over there."

"Sure thing," they respond, before sitting down at the ledge you just climbed up from. "I'll wait right here."

You glance at them from behind. "Not coming?"

"Nah," they reply, swinging their legs on the edge airily. "All this 'investigating' is pretty tiring. I think I'll sit this one out."

You shrug and continue to walk towards the light. Over your shoulder, you call, "If you hear a scream, run."

At that, they seem to smile. "Will do."

You walk slowly into the room, cringing at the creaky door, but you're relieved to find a well-lit area, pretty small, and more importantly, empty. Your adventuring pays off when you spot a document on the floor. Instantly curious, you go to pick it up.

Inside, you find a documentary of what seems to be a recording of another letter. Or what seems to be a death wish. Your heart sinks as you read the solemn requiem of what seems to be emitting from a dying patient.

At the end, when the patient speaks of hope, the sentence abruptly stops. You have a hint as to why that's so, seeing as the author mentions a bleeding wound that stopped hurting a long time ago.

You can't do this anymore. 

These were people, whether you want to think about it or not. They may have been sick, or twisted, or maybe they were dumped into this circumstance for money, like Chara. But not all of them were monsters.

This writer could have been someone like Chara. The thought makes you so upset that you stuff the document away, forcing itself out of your thoughts. You head back.

Upon approaching Chara, where they still reside on the edge of the catwalk, they hear your footsteps and turn to you expectantly. 

"Did you find anything?" they ask.

You consider for a split second on saying yes, but you find yourself shaking your head. "Nothing."

They peer at you curiously for another second before brushing it off with a blithe half-smile. "Slow news day, huh?" they joke.

You shuffle down the bridge and back into the water without acknowledging their response. Instead you turn back and motion for them to jump down with you, and you oblige wordlessly, which you're grateful for.

With more ease than before, Chara maintains their calm manner and slowly locks themselves onto your back again. You turn your back on the bridge, on the place of the Variant's soliloquy, and trudge forward. That's all you can do. 

You may not have been able to save that poor soul, but you can still save Chara.

-

Halfway through, you hear chains in the distance.

At first, you think you're just going nuts to the point where you're positive that it was just your imagination— there's no way he'd could have gotten down here, right? The chains are like the ghost: they'll pass.

But as you swim through the gigantic sewer pool, you begin to hear familiar grunts.

You try to ignore it, but it's when Chara whispers, "Do you hear that?" that you reconsider. There's terror the emits from his reappeared presence, but there's also anger. Can't he leave you in the sewers in peace?

"So, are you two married or something?" Chara murmurs behind you, sounding as annoyed as you feel. "Because he's just going wherever we're going now."

You grit your teeth, seeing as Chara's own frustration is fueling yours. You need a way out, quicker than before now. The problem is the room is so big, and your camera can only see so far in the dark. That, and the splashing fairly far off is a beneficial tool to have, but it doesn't tell the proximity of Walker's location.

"Keep an eye out," you order quietly, looking around with your infrared for an sort of sign that he's nearby.

"Sure," Chara says with a grin in their tone. "Don't worry, I've got your back."

You dare to roll your eyes. "Just keep an eye out, you little smartass."

It seems like hours of sloshing around uselessly in the dark, occasionally spotting Walker far away in your field of vision and shifting away. All roads seems to point to nowhere, with the only award being that Chara spots a battery near a stack of boxes amongst the swamp.

When all hope seems to be lost, and you're coming to terms with residing in the sewers for the rest of your days, you see a stairway up to a catwalk, half flooded up the steps. But to the left of it you spot the bridge leading to a hole upward. Another escape, and ultimately eluding Walker's grasp again.

You trudge forward, hearing Walker's grunts closer than comfort but too focused on the task at hand to truly care. You climb up the stairway, with it taking Chara's weight out of the water and having them burden your back even more so, and you're about to release them back on the steps carefully.

And then you hear Walker mumble, "I hear a little rat."

Your heart stops. Behind you, Chara snaps their head around and gasps. "He saw us!"

You don't have time to think. You readjust Chara onto your back again, hearing them make a small shriek of surprise, and sprint up the stairs like there's no tomorrow.

Chara screams, "What the fuck are you doing?! Put me down!"

You swear you can feel Walker's hot breath on your neck. You run faster, everything tightening with effort.

Behind you, Chara protests loudly in a nonsensical fit of panic. "I'm serious! Miles, put me down _right_ now! I _mean_ it! Let go of me, you dumbass!"

You're not listening; all you can see through your sweat and haze of terror is the ladder, so close yet so far. You have to jump.

"Hold on!" You call behind them.

"What?"

You jump for the ladder, arms out reached, and you slam your hands onto the rails with an abrupt flash of pain at the impact. Chara's arms squeeze your neck harder, threatening to choke you. But you can hear Walker's huffs as he trudges loudly up the steps. You automatically begin to place one arm in front of the other, climbing frantically, looking like a loon probably with a child dangling on your back. But eventually you reach the top.

Upon reaching the floor, you're so out of breath yet so relieved that you could almost kiss the ground you're crouching on. There's alarm in thinking that Walker will chase after you, but upon daring to look down, you hear him growl with frustration at your disappearance. You escaped, again.

Chara has long since released their hold on your back and is now regaining themselves above you. They wait for you to step back up, and their eyes are shining.

"Holy hell," they breathe, "that was...fucking _awesome!_ How did you do that?"

You straighten up with a groan. Your back feels heavier than a stone; that's bound to cramp up in the morning.

"I have no clue," you admit with a lengthy breath. "But I'm not doing it again."

"Aw," Chara sighs with a tired smile. "I was hoping you'd carry me around for the rest of the journey."

"You've got legs," you remark, cleaning off your camera from any splashes it may have gotten from the water. "You can carry your own weight, can't you?"

They stick their tongue out at you for a second. "Where to next, captain sassypants?"

Their childish banter has you drawing attention back into your surroundings. Near a door is a man hunched over in a chair, but he's right next to the only exit out of this small room, so you'll take your chances with him.

"Let's go through here," you finally say, "and ignore the Variant."

"Right behind you," Chara replies.

You walk past the crouching patient with ease and spot a sign. Male Ward. So despite the holdup with Walker, you're still headed in the right direction.

You head into a narrow hallway that you find rather uncomfortable, given the many open doors planted along the walls. A perfect place for someone to attack you.

Through the fog up ahead, you spot a shadow. Running towards you.

Chara steps to your side right as you make out the silhouette of a Variant coming closer to you. He's holding something sharp and dangerous in his hand.

"What is he—?" Chara starts.

_"Get back!"_

The Variant readies his weapon to fall on Chara's burnt shoulder, and your instincts fall into overdrive as you push them out of the way. The stick slams into your right side, and something is ringing.

Hot pain flashes across your temple, promising a pounding headache, and through the foggy hearing provided by the blow, you hear Chara shouting at the Variant, who is now running away.

You emit a small, agonized groan, and massage your head with your free hand. The effects of the damage don't seem internal, thank god, and the pain quickly resides enough for you to be able to see better.

When you face Chara again, you're surprised to find their expression is almost angry.

"Stop it!" They yell, paying no mind to your fragile headache.

You blink a couple of times, adjusting your vision, before hazily asking, "What?"

"Stop trying to save me!" They explain, looking almost to the point of tears by now. "Don't die because of me, okay?"

"I...what?"

"I just..." Chara looks at the floor, and they fidget their thumbs across their dirtied outfit anxiously. "Please. I'm not important. You don't have to keep hurting yourself for me."

They look at you earnestly, and their eyes are bright yet heavy with pain. "You can't die," they falter. "You can't leave me alone."

You'd expected before to feel something like dread, at hearing that they need you. But all you feel is this dull form of perseverance that ties in with ambition. You're getting out of here, but Chara is getting out of here too. And if all else fails and they end up escaping without you, well, it seems like that'd be pointless to them. They need you here with them, because you're the only person who ever cared.

You shake your head. "I'm not going to leave you behind," you vow. "We had a deal, right?"

Chara is quiet, almost to the point where you're not sure they heard you. But then, still looking at the floor, they give a stern nod. "Right," they murmur, barely above a whisper.

You're both tired. You've both been through hell and back, and for different reasons. But for now, the primal reason is a necessity. You have to get out of here so that you can be safe, no matter what happens afterwards.

"Right," they repeat, louder, yet not determined. "We can do this. We'll get out."

They don't sound like they believe what they're saying. And honestly, you don't either. Freedom seems like such a nostalgic concept now, too far away for you to truly grasp for yourself. But maybe as long as someone keeps encouraging you, however strained the belief is, then that should be enough.

Besides, being responsible for a human life is demanding. You have to stay alive for them. You remember the Variant's dying words back in the sewer, scripted onto a document. If you can save just one person from that fate, then you'll take it.

"We'll get out," you nod at their words, and move towards the hallway again. Good thing your ears have stopped ringing.

You feel Chara grab your hand, and you both stay quiet for a long, long time.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alt: you can make as many wrong turns as you want and expect at least one to make a right, but in the end it's still a wrong turn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for detailed gore scenes, explicit discussion of torture and a brief moment of relapse

_I thought this place couldn't smell any worse. Hundreds of bodies crammed into a room, thousands of flies. Is this the priest's "way out?"_

You take another minute after storing away your journal to gander at the pile of corpses, just on the other side of the door. Whatever the original use of the room was down here, it's now a bloody graveyard. A feast for flies.

Some bodies are recognizable enough so that you can decipher an officer or two. The rest might as well be patients, but you can't tell from the stack of gore and blood that covers the pile.

No use staring at it too long, no matter the possibilities of how Father Martin partook in this brutal massacre. You turn back towards the stairway up to the Male Ward, where Chara is waiting.

They lean idly along the wall beneath the sign directing you upwards. When you approach, they look at you expectantly.

"Find what you were looking for?" they ask, taking a step down to greet you.

This time, you answer honestly. You nod. "A room of bodies. Decided to film it."

Chara nods. "I'm sure the people at home would love to see that," they remark.

You don't reply. However, you take the time to outstretch your arm in a friendly gesture, and they make no haste to head to your side and take your hand silently.

Fuck it, you decide. You might as well admit to caring about this kid now, however obnoxious they tend to be. With a reassuring squeeze, you head upstairs, closer to the exit with a child in tow.

-

At least you're out of the sewers now, you think with a grimace. But reaching the ground floor of the Ward is still a current objective for you.

Not far ahead, you spot a flickering shadow along the wall, and closer to you is a giant crate you need to push out of the way to access a hole.

You peer downward, and spot a man in binds, twitching in a chair. Not an ideal place to head towards, but there's nowhere else to go.

Sucking up the last morsels of strength you have left, you ready yourself to push the heavy crate out of the way. You motion the kid to the other side. "Help me push this," you order.

Chara nods. "Alright."

You kneel downward and press your hands to the ends of the crate, and you're relieved when you feel Chara pulls forward to ease your muscles. With effort, you both manage to shove the crate away from the hole enough for you to squeeze under the hidden hole with ease.

You stand up for a quick stretch before crouching under, uneasy at the flickering light ahead and the sitting Variant, but you sneak closer anyway.

The room is smaller than you'd expected, once you enter it. The only threat being the man wrapped in shackles, his head down but his feet are free. 

You think you recall him being the Variant that you saw racing up the steps earlier, up to the Male Ward. If that's the case, then he's not as immobilized as he seems to be, slumped over in the chair.

Overhead, the flickering lightbulb stammers and shakes, and immediately you spot a door behind you. There's no way that you're going to be stuck in here with a madman.

Pushing Chara towards the door, you exit the room quietly, eyes glued onto the somber Variant in case he decides to try something. Once you both are back out into a dark hallway, you waste no time in slamming the door shut behind you.

The corridor to your right is way too dim for comfort, so you decide that the enlightened side to your left is probably the best option. As you head that way, you notice Chara taking a special interest in the black hallway— of course; the shadows don't scare them, considering that they can see right through them. 

They ponder at what seems to be a door, concealed in the darkness. You look at their wonder quizzically. "What are you looking at?" you ask.

Chara motions you forward, and you do so out of pure curiosity. When the door creaks open, you're greeted with another empty area, almost as small as the room you just came from. 

There's no document on the floor to grab your interest; nothing until you feel Chara tug on your sleeve to emit your attention.

They point to a wall. "Look," they whisper.

You glance at where their finger is directing, and you catch what they're referring to. On the wall, in graffiti, is what appears to be instructions. in all caps, scribbled neatly into the brick, "FINGERS FIRST. THEN BALLS. THEN TONGUE."

By the bothered look tightening Chara's facial features, you recognize that you probably don't need to even try to explain what it's referring to; you both already know what's happening here.

You break out your journal again, because despite acknowledging that it's best not to talk to Chara about torture mechanic— a touchy subject for reasons blind to your knowledge— you still need to voice your concerns somewhere.

_The harder I try to escape, the further I get into this god-awful place. Like fighting a tar pit._

You grimace at the words that glow black in your night vision. _They've been torturing people in the basement, and by method. Written on the wall— 'FINGERS FIRST, THEN BALLS, THEN TONGUE.' Somebody's managing the torture, instructing them._

Clipping your notebook shut, unwilling to dig further into the sick mechanisms of torture endured by patients, you make a move to walk back outside. You peek behind you and see that Chara is still staring at the words with a blank expression. In the dark, they seem to recite the words in their head like a twisted poem.

You frown, unsettled by their delay. "You coming?"

They turn to you in the dusk, with a bitter yet sorrowful expression. "So they tortured people down here, huh?" they murmur, half to themselves.

You don't know why you're so surprised to hear them outright address what the instructions on the wall are for; just like back in the Showers, you notice how tiny Chara really is. They're just a kid, but you look into their eyes and they're so, so tired. Maybe even more than you are.

But you stiffly nod. "Yes, they did."

Chara gives a halfhearted hum of consideration, glancing back at the wall and seeming so drawn back into the words that you move forward to gently push them back out into the hallway, shutting the door behind you in case they attempted to peek again.

They shuffle their feet, uncomfortable. You can't say you'd blame them; they could have easily been brought down to the basement, like the others, carved up like meat in a butcher shop for punishment. A corporation that sees a child as another number, another experiment, makes you sick to your stomach. They're too small.

"That's not going to happen to us," you say firmly, shaking your head to emphasize your point. "We're still here, aren't we?"

Chara takes another minute to stare at the floor before pulling their eyes up to yours. You were right; they're exhausted, and bags are slowly forming under their sockets that are too bright with youth to be so broken. 

But there's also a flicker of confidence at your words, you notice, that you take pride in.

"Yeah, we are," they confirm, regaining courage with a nod. "In one piece, too."

They're right. Both of you still have everything intact, and while sanity may still be shaky, you can still evade the asylum with only a bruise and maybe a headache. The less you lose in here, the less you're tied to this place; just how you'd like it.

You have each other. Chara with their sneaking mechanics, you with your logical foreknowledge. You can beat this place, and you refuse to have it beat you.

Chara notices that you're beginning to think more optimistically, and they mirror your sudden bout of bravery with a grin. It's not genuine, but it's trying, and that's what matters right now.

They hold up their arm in a high five gesture with a playful gleam in their weary eyes. "Teamwork!"

You hesitate, just for a moment, before feeling something close to affection softening your pride. You nod. "Teamwork."

The two of you slam hands before making your way back to the brighter hallway.

-

As you relish in the joy of discovering a battery on an abandoned cart, the door behind you starts banging, with the promise of someone attempting to get in or out.

The Variant behind you pays no mind, as he's splayed along the floor in a defensive position, visibly trembling and holding his arms over his head, in a weak attempt to protect himself from the horrors of this place.

Chara towers over him, keeping a fair distance away from his grasp but still enough to have them calculating his terror with some form of sympathy darkening their gaze. 

You've noticed that recently they've been becoming more sorrowful towards the Variants, coming to terms with some personal superiority they may have perhaps felt from being the only one immune to the psychological torture. Yet now they seem to be perceiving themselves as an equal to the patient's suffering.

Somehow, this unnerves you, so you wave them back to your side with the excuse that there's another crate stacked with propane tanks to move out of the way.

You're set on the door that was previously being slammed against, unwillingly, seeing as it's the only door accessible in your location. But you have to take your chances.

Abandoning interest in the horrified Variant, Chara provides assistance in repeating their tactic of pulling the crate, while you push. The unpleasant creaking of the object across the cement floor has you inwardly cringing, believing that the noise might stimulate the Variant into attacking, but he remains unfazed by your presence and instead wrapped up in his own misery.

You open the door into a hallway that's bright enough to blind your infrared, so you snap the camera shut. Nothing here.

Lots of doors to enter, but unfortunately they're all locked. You frown and your heart skips a beat at the idea of being trapped down here, with little recollection of how you even managed to get this far under.

Chara calls to you from a distance, "Over here!" You see them pointing to an open vent.

You feel a wave of relief. Guess you won't be stuck in here after all.

When you crouch down to observe the vent with your night vision, you realize that it's just a broken conditioner, and it actually leads right into another room.

The area is dark enough to waste your batteries on, and it appears to be something like a small medical ward. The beds are clothed in old canopies that radiate a gruesome stench, so you stay away.

Flies buzz across the scattered blood and organs littered across the floor, and you get the feeling that perhaps the doctors that operated on the patients had a different calling in life than to stitch up wounds.

Chara is examining the beds with a wrinkled nose, daring to peek at the medical equipment with what seems to be a glazed horror in their eyes. They've been pricked and pickled for whatever medical problems their parents pretended to diagnose them as, and you find yourself having to once again draw them to your side as they seem stuck in a fog, hassling memories you don't know of.

"The doctors are gone," you promise to them, placing a guiding arm on their shoulder. "They can't hurt us."

Chara sinks into your side with a small, almost frustrated moan. "I hate this," they grumble.

"I know. We're almost out."

You look around, attempting to put your words to truth, and you catch sight of a dangling vent shaft, promising escape. The door in front of you holds a mumbling man, tied in a chair like the last Variant you passed, except shackled only at the wrist and not the entire torso.

You can hear his mumbling insanity through the closed door. "Can't sleep. Wernicke's waiting for me there."

You decide not to take your chances. Vent it is.

Directing Chara to the bloody stretcher that you're going to climb onto, you notice a peculiar area in the corner, where flies seem most attracted to. You abandon Chara at the stretcher, instructing them to stay put.

The swarming of bugs weren't lying. When you peek around the canopy, you grimace at the sight of a mutliated corpse. Unlike other bodies, this man looked like he was carefully dissected, his leg torn into the bone as if he was a frog in a school science lab. 

You almost choke at the sight, and Chara catches interest from across the room at your reaction.

"What is it?"

They begin to step towards you, and you refuse to have anybody witness this gory scene. No matter what Chara has seen, you can still prevent them from witnessing all the horror that Murkoff offers.

You hold out an arm in warning with a frantic, yet sharp air to your command. "Don't come over here!"

Chara stops dead in their tracks with widened eyes. You don't recall ever snapping at them like that beforehand, and their clear distrust of adults must have automatically painted you as a potential threat.

They retrace their steps sheepishly back to the bed, and automatically you feel a dripping sense of regret. But at the same time, you've just prevented them from viewing a sight that might have haunted their nightmares.

There's a document lying on top of a tiny medic stand, and you nab it, despite how unsanitary it is.

Inside seems to be a letter from a Doctor Trager. The name catches your attention because of the way it seems to ring a bell from somewhere. 

Vaguely, in the first document you picked up upon entering the asylum, you remember a patient named Billy. How he'd dreamed of Trager revealing to him the truth of his mother's lawsuit against Murkoff. You expected the name to just be a drifting synonym, tied down by mere insanity. To hear this name have a voice is uncomfortable.

And from the contents of the file, it doesn't sound like Trager had all his sanity together anyway, seeing as he probed vital organs for naive curiosity. Yet the file puzzles you, in wondering when this was documented. 

Did Murkoff experiment on their own staff? It wouldn't surprise you if so.

Once you're done, you make your way back to where Chara is waiting. They look like you've beaten them, the way that they almost seem to shrink at your approach. They find a sudden marvel at the flies encircling a bloodbath on the floor.

You feel something close to annoyance at their skepticism, when you've been nothing but gracious as possible. But you have to recognize that there's a history with Chara that you've only accessed snippets of. 

Of course they have trust issues; of course they may take your words to the extreme. Especially if you really are the only person who ever showed care for them.

Ignoring that you're technically in the right by pushing them away from the corpse, you tell them, "I'm sorry. There was something back there I didn't want you to see."

Chara perks up with registered surprise. You wonder if they're so used to being exposed to terror without a care that for you to suddenly shelter them from something is odd.

Finally they nod, still disturbed but seeming more understanding. "Okay," they murmur. "I believe you."

You motion up to the open vent. "Up here."

At that, Chara gives a small smile. "I figured so."

The stretcher is matted with dried blood that makes your cringe as you step onto the bedspread, and the wheels beneath the bed creak with the effort of surging forward. Luckily you spot Chara holding the rails to keep the stretcher in place.

"Here," you instruct, "Hop onto the bed and I'll give you a leg up."

They seem uncertain about providing more weight onto the bed, but eventually they join you up on the filthy mattress. Their face is plastered with disgust at the squeaking springs beneath.

"Yuck," they grimace.

You get down on one knee to help hoist them upward, ignoring the fact that the blood is staining your jeans even more.

Chara places their foot in your hands, and you make haste to push them upward with the relief of having their disgusting sock off of your palms. When they're safely hoisted up the vent, you brush your hands quickly on your jacket to rid yourself of any dirt.

"Come on up!" Chara calls down to you.

Pushing yourself up the vent is a blessing; at last you can get off that stupid stretcher. With a grunt, you climb over the ledge, and you notice Chara grabbing your elbows to steady yourself. Although their efforts to help weren't extremely beneficial, you take it as a sign that you're forgiven.

There's only one way to go, and that's forward. If you attempted to go back, that's not so much as progress and more like finding a way back into the sewers, farther away from any exit.

Since Chara is ahead, they have the responsibility of taking the lead. You follow them aimlessly, unable to see anything past their body wriggling through the tightness of the vents with frustrated grunts. When they stop, you nearly bump into them.

"What?"

They turn to you. "Look!"

They make way for you to see that they're observing a hole at the bottom. It was way too fast that you've found an exit, you ponder, thinking back to that man tied to the chair.

Still, if you end up in his room, then maybe he will be like the other Variant and not be bothered.

Ignoring the rules you've played by throughout, you allow Chara to go down first. You don't hear anything that could be a sign of warning, and while the ambience of silence doesn't exactly ease you, Chara drops to the floor before you can reconsider.

Upon seeing them by themselves, you make effort to drop down alongside them as quickly as possible.

You instantly regret your decision, because the minute you're close enough to catch sight of Chara's facial expression, they have all their attention on the screaming Variant. So he's not the secluded type at all.

He begins to shake and scream violently, trapped in what seems to be an electric chair. You appearance, however subtle it was, seemed to have triggered something close to fear in him.

You're too busy looking at the Variant's sudden seizure for you to notice that Chara is frantically tugging on your arm to point at the men outside the room. They have something large in their arms, and they're slamming the door multiple times with said object. They're trying to break into the room.

"Meat! Wants meat!" They screech, over and over, timing their words with every beating the door takes.

You don't have time to make sense of what's happening. You spot another crate of propane tanks blocking an exit, and you hurry Chara over to the door. Heart beating faster with every bang you hear against the door, you both manage to push the crate out of the way, and you swing the door open just as you hear the men breaking into the room.

The door unlocks into another string of hallways, and you're pushing Chara forward with the newfound terror of being caught. 

You take their warning cries behind you to heart when they scream, "You can't hide!" So you're not even going to try and rebel against their words.

You slam a door shut behind you as you run into a smaller room, attempting to buy yourself some time. Your heart is racing so loudly that you can barely hear your own words as you turn to Chara. 

"Look for objects to block the doors!"

Their face is almost white upon seeing your terror, your uncertainty of what to do next, but they bravely nod and inspect the room as quickly as possible before saying, "There! The crates!"

You waste little time in helping them force the crates onto the doorway, just as you hear banging against it. Someone's attempting to get in.

"Hurricane's coming and you can't stop it!" The voice outside yells. They know you're in there.

Once you're pleased with your work, you're relieved to hear the disappointed exclamation of, "There's gotta be another way!"

As much as you'd love to be trapped in a room forever, you spot another crate hiding a concealed door to your right. It's better than nothing.

Chara doesn't question the idea of escaping the room and back into danger, instead helping you once again pull the crate away until you can access the doorway.

"There's another door. This way!"

So you haven't lost them at all. You vault over a stretcher blocking the path, the entire time making sure that Chara is running alongside you. When they attempt to slow down from either exhaustion or overwhelming fear, you grab their hand and pull them forward.

The next door is marked by a blood trail. In your mind, a quick thought flashes that technically, you're still doing the right thing by following the blood.

You enter a metallic-colored room, where a decrepit, torn body of what seems to be a security officer greets you, splayed across an operating table. You don't think about grieving for the loss, instead following the same routine in pushing the crate onto the door and sucking in a breath before looking around for another way out.

You find an open vent leading upward. With Chara still intact, you head up first, assisting them up shortly after by grabbing their hand and helping them up due to their short height.

This vent is shorter than the others, you realize grimly. So no chance of just hiding in here until the Variants blow over. You have to jump down again.

Before dropping back down, you turn to Chara, who looks like they're very close to throwing up. "Are you holding up alright?"

They glare at you, almost incredulous. "I'm fine! Let's go, let's go!"

Following their rule of thumb, you drop down, waiting for Chara before quickly running aimlessly through another corridor. It's not long before you hear the footsteps sprinting behind you, probably rambling on about how slippery you are or money or whatever these weirdos are after now.

Upon vaulting another desk, Chara suddenly sprinting ahead of you at regained courage, you see them jumping over a huge gap in the floor with impressive agility. They motion you forward, flinging their eyes back on your pursuers.

"They're coming closer! Miles, come on!"

You don't even dare to look back. You're trusting the kid on that whoever is chasing you, they're already breathing down your neck.

Running forward, flinging all common sense aside, you jump.

The impact of the cement on your arms almost has you dropping into the black abyss below, that harbors no safety in death. Just as you feel your fingers slipping on the edges of the concrete, a smaller pair of hands reaches down to you and clenches your wrists tightly, grunting as they pull you back up.

Your knees find the shelter of the floor, accompanied by heavy breaths that heave your lungs. Chara releases your arms once they entrust that you're safe.

Behind you, the Variants grimace at your escapade. "You slippery little whores." And then they're gone.

Through their own session of anxiety, Chara shoots daggers at where they've departed. "Fuck you."

You almost laugh at their response, but you save your breath for getting yourself back up and helping the kid off the floor. You're both breathing hard, your ribs long since stopped forgiving you for pushing them so mercilessly, but you survived another attack. Whatever they were going to do to you, they can't do it anymore. The tension slowly ebbs away.

You encounter another hallway, poorly lit, upon walking forward. The farther you are away from danger, the better.

As soon as you're out of the Male Ward and wherever these guys are residing, you'll let your guard down. Well, let it down as much as possible.

The distrust of sudden sanctuary pays off when you hear someone repeat farther away, "There's another door. This way!"

_"Seriously?"_

Chara's outburst of pure frustration hits close to home, but you're already too busy in pushing the two of you forward again. The more headstart you have on these bastards, the better.

A thinner hallway, lacking doors, leads you to jumping into a desk and over a doorframe. You worry for a split second that Chara might be unable to make it, so you assist them the same way you did in helping them into the vents, only more quickly because this time there are people trying to eat your face. They drop down with a small gasp of pain, and you follow with your own as your ankles shoot up a flash of agony before you recover.

There's an abandoned schoolroom, serving for what purpose you're unsure of. The men in here don't seem to be as small as Chara to sit in the desks that have been scraped to the sides of the room. Unless they have more insane adolescents being held somewhere else. But why is it so close to the operating room?

You'd love to criticize the building structure of this place if you weren't running for your life.

The Variants' psychotic voices echo from one to the other, "I want my money! I want my money!"

What money, you have no clue. Do you care? Not really.

The corridor breaks into a darker alley, and a thin stream of light emitting from a doorway has your hopes back up. Chara is already halfway through the door when you enter it and shut it as swiftly as you came.

As you both struggle for a bit more breath, there's a voice that seems to carry over a nonexistent intercom. 

"Who's down there? You're not one of them, are you?"

You look for the source of the voice, and you find it near what seems to be a small elevator to transport goods up to another room.

"Quick!" the voice urges. "Get in the dumb waiter if you want to live!"

There's nothing you can push out of the way, and again, nowhere to hide. Chara seems interested in the little waiter, looking at it expectantly before turning to you.

"It's your call," they finally say, but their voice is tinged with horror as you hear them coming closer and closer. That door's not going to hold anybody off for long.

Besides, the voice seems much more sane than these guys. It's best to take your chances. And if he turns out to be tricking you, since your trust is wearing thin in this place, then you both can overwhelm him and make a run for it.

"What's the worst that could happen?" you ask them rhetorically, and you are both aware that the worst case scenario could be many, many things. 

But Chara instead nods, seeming happy to oblige in straying as far away from the Variants as possible.

You open the small food elevator as soon as you hear banging outside your room. And you don't know why you do this, maybe because logically you were closer, or maybe because a primal instinct was for your own safety and no one else's, but you end up scooting into the small space first.

The minute your weight registers, the caged door shuts you in. And Chara is left outside.

You barely have time to register as you're locked into your small prison, but the kid's eyes become wide with realization. You're going up, and they're not.

They open their mouth to say something, anything, but the elevator surges you forward as you catch the scream abruptly cut off, _"No!"_

_"Kid!"_

And that's it. You're left alone, in the elevator.

The Variants are probably breaking into the room right now, and Chara is helpless at their hands. You broke the promise. You left them alone. That should be you down there, instead of them.

No. No no no no no no _no_ —

The door before you opens to a man towering over you. He position against the elevator implies that he was waiting for you, but the robotic objects covering his face seem no less than threatening.

Behind him, there's a wheelchair that seems to be almost waiting for you. His voice comes out as smug and almost like a preening cat, waiting for his next kill.

"You made the right choice here, buddy."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alt: Life isn't fair, but what are you gonna do? Cope with it like a healthy human being?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter somewhat touches on the heavy subject of Chara and their messy brain problems (they are written with PTSD and BPD in mind) and, as always, be cautious if that stuff is kinda ehhhhh to you
> 
> And gore and violence warning but that's not anything new

Trager's screams are cut abruptly short as the elevator doors compress his insides. When the life is finally drained out, you feel relieved to see the giant scissors he's holding elude his limp grasp and clatter to the floor below.

There's a sick satisfaction that you feel in somewhat luring the man to his death. It's not a feeling you wish to be associated with often, since technically, Trager's blood is on your hands. 

But you remember the mangled patients that fell to the self-proclaimed doctor. You dare to call his brutal fate justice.

And it serves him right for separating you from the kid and slicing off your fingers.

At the thought, you look somberly down at your mutilated hand. The blood has stopped flowing from the gaping holes and has begun to dry on your hands, and the pain is still sharp, but it's something you can work with.

You remember how you assured Chara that both of you would get out in one piece. It looks like life had other plans, you grimace. It's just two fingers, sure, and you could have suffered a greater loss. But if you escape now, you're leaving with a piece of you— literally— in the asylum. Every time you try to hold something properly or go about your lifestyle, something is going to be off. You have no choice but to admit that the asylum happened to you, rather than just going about your daily life and try to forget this instance.

With a grunt, and a burst of pain from your now-sensitive hands, you attempt to pull off a trap on the ceiling that can get you out of here. The elevator seems to be a bit clogged up with Trager at the moment to operate.

The shaft opens, and you climb up, recognizing how much more it hurts now since your fingers haven't had proper bandaging.

Once out, you crawl onto the top of the frozen elevator, avoiding accidentally touching the bottom half of Trager's body.

It's quiet again. Before leaving, you break out your camcorder in an indulgent moment of victory, filming Trager's lifeless corpse.

You open your journal while you're at it: _How to make Trager Juice. Step one: squeeze._

Your abatement is short-lived when you look around, instinctively checking in on Chara to make sure they're holding up. But through the haze of panic ever since your doctor's visit the second you entered the food elevator, it never fully sunk in that Chara is gone now.

It's hard to register everything you feel, at their absence. Grief and guilt and pure anxiety mix into one being and stir uneasily at your chest, causing your heart to seem to thump at an uneven pace with overwhelming emotion. This isn't like before, when they left because they needed to switch on a lever, with the vow that they'd return soon. 

They're somewhere without your knowledge. Maybe dead, or worse.

You can't process the picture of Chara splayed on the floor, eyes glazed with death. Yet it haunts you, because if that's the case then it's your fault. There are worse fates they could be suffering without you there to help them. Just one mistake of yours cost them dearly.

The idea of what to do next immobilizes you. You're already lost in this asylum, and heading back down to what you assume is the basement where Chara is, back to where the insane Variants reside, is already a shaky notion. Besides, the paths might be blocked off, so it could be a pointless effort.

There's also the theory that if you even found Chara, they'd be in such a horrid state that you'd have to marvel at their torn corpse. You don't know if you can do that to yourself.

There is literally _nothing_ that you can do, except so what you've always done and head for the exit.

Every step away from Chara is plagued with nothing but guilt, even more so than when you'd inadvertently burnt their shoulder. They could still be alive, and you'd left them to die, in a basement that you lead them too. The thought is almost too much to handle, and when you try to shove it away to think of the present, it resurfaces.

It's not fair. It's not fair. It's not fair.

You want to scream, cry, just do _something_ instead of walk away and pretend that your promise to them was nothing. But there's almost a numbness to the grief you feel, enabling to do nothing but walk forward like a zombie. The primal urge to escape seeps your limbs into autopilot, and you oblige because there's nothing else you can do.

The exit doors hold no more appeal to you, but you have to keep going. You try to tell yourself that it's what they would have wanted.

-

Outside a large hallway entrance, boarded up, you see a man standing outside. He seems to be waiting for you.

Before you move closer, a source of light in the man's hands nearly blinds you, but you notice that it's a lantern. You remember how in the sewers, you spotted something like that dangling in the darkness. Chara identified the holder of the light as Father Martin.

"Thank god you survived!" The Priest greets you with a warm welcome, looking earnestly relieved that you'd avoided death. He seems to ignore that you don't have Chara with you this time, like before. "I feared that secular maniac would have carved you up like the others."

You don't press who or what he's referring to, because you feel like you already have a hint. It begins to anger you that he seems to be avoiding Chara's disappearance and instead focusing on your own survival, which seems pointless now.

Father Martin looks around suddenly, like he's afraid that someone may be chasing you down, or that Trager will come out of nowhere. Then he leans in as close as he can with the window guarding you from him.

"Meet me outside," he insists, "We're close now."

Before you can ask what exactly you're close _to_ , he's already off. You have no other choice than to try and find Father Martin outside. If he can get you one step closer to the exit doors, you have to take it.

Around the corner, you turn on your infrared to guide you through the shadows. The hallway breaks off into two sections, but the longer corridor to your right seems promising.

Your footsteps echo heavily through the area, and then you hear something.

_Clank!_

Against a doorway, you hold your breath as something seems to be slammed against the wall. It almost sounds like a small soda can being deliberately thrown. Like a distraction.

Your mind goes blank.

Slowly, just in case you're wrong, you creak open the door a bit wider, and something whizzes by your pant leg to slam against the wall behind you. It shimmers in your infrared, but it merely seems to be any sort of small, anonymous object. The tactic is so familiar that you can't help but get your hopes up.

You don't care if it's the dumbest thing you've ever done, but addressing the bathroom stalls of the restroom you've walked into, you whisper, "Kid?"

A small head peeks out from one of the stalls, and you recognize the rusty-brown hair immediately. You think at first that your mind is playing tricks on you, because there's no way that they could have gotten out of the basement so quickly.

But the figure's eyes widen with realization, and they gasp, "Miles!"

They rush out of their hiding spot to reach you, and you assume that they're going to give you a hug. You're surprised when instead a pair of hands violently pushes you away.

"How fucking _dare_ you!" Chara screeches, once again casting all danger aside and glaring at you so furiously that it catches you off guard.

You're confused at first what they're referring to, and you stay silent with shock.

Chara gives you a glowering stare that's so great in fury that you notice that their eyes are shining. You don't recognize it at first as tears.

"You _promised!_ " they scream, voice breaking. "We had a deal! You promised not to leave me behind!"

You want to hold up your hands for a defensive gesture, but the thought of them noticing your missing fingers is unnerving enough for you to end up taking a step back.

"I didn't mean to," you try to reassure helplessly, "The elevator closed on me--"

" _I don't care!_ "

Their outburst is so sudden that you don't try to argue against it. Chara begins to sniffle, but they blink hard to stop the tears pricking their eyes. They weakly attempt to glare at you angrily, but it becomes strained and hurt.

"You scared me," they murmur, having lost their voice. "Damn you."

There's nothing you can say for yourself; you feel just as guilty for leaving them alone, by themselves. Even if they miraculously escaped, you still terrified them, because they were probably just as scared as you were that you'd never find them again.

You crouch down to their level, trying to look at their downcast eyes.

"I'm here now," you promise gently. "I'm sorry I scared you."

They give another sniff before throwing their arms around you and holding you tightly.

Your brain curtails for a minute, since being hugged— especially by children— is not one of your professions. But you're both tired, and you find all your relief upon seeing them alive seeping into your arms that slowly wrap around the smaller body, returning the hug.

"I promised," you tell them. "I got you. I'm here."

You stay like that for a minute, Chara whispering meaningless curses into your jacket in an attempt to punish you. All that matters is that both of your hearts are dull beating, and you can still get out of here, fingers or no fingers.

As you rub their back reassuringly with a free hand, Chara slowly withdraws from your hold on them, like in a trance. You stare at them curiously before you realize that something is wrong.

Wordlessly, they grab your wrist, stained with red, and follow the blood to your mangled hand. When they spot the missing finger, their eyes widen with horror.

You snap the hand away from them suddenly. "It's nothing," you try to protest, but their gaze is locked onto the fingers, and they immediately find that the other hand is just as bad.

Chara doesn't take their glazed stare away from the sight, and they choke out in a whisper, "Oh my god..."

You realize now, why Chara's shoulder was such a fragile topic for them to discuss with you. It's because they didn't want you to worry about them, when there were other priorities at hand.

But you hold out your hands to them, exposing the brutal wounds because now there's no use hiding them. 

"They were just a few fingers," you explain calmly, casting aside your own pain for the sake of soothing theirs.

Chara doesn't seem the least bit alleviated at your consoling. They gingerly reach down their own set of hands, fingers all still intact, and hover them over the missing appendages.

"What did they do to you..."

You wince at their tone, sounding almost close to tears. You find yourself grabbing their one shoulder firmly, and they manage to perk up.

"Chara," you say, and some of the clouds in their gaze clear upon you saying their name. "Listen to me. He's gone, okay? The man that did this. He's not going to hurt anybody anymore."

They look at you miserably, and tears well up in their eyes again. "I could have stopped him..." they mumble defeatedly.

You shake your head. "He would have just come after you."

"You don't know that."

Gripping their shoulder tighter, you argue, "It doesn't matter what could have happened. We're both still here. I can manage without a couple of fingers, okay?"

They don't seem to believe you, and halfheartedly you're trying to convince even yourself that that's the case. But eventually, they seems to realize that arguing isn't going to progress the current objective, and they nod. They're still not looking at you.

"Okay," they murmur. And that's that.

You straighten yourself back off the floor, and hold your grip on their shoulder a bit longer for comfort before picking up where you both left off.

"We're going to follow Father Martin outside," you tell them.

"Okay," they say again.

"I don't know what he's going to show us, but he told me that we're close."

At that, they look up at you, seeming curious again. "Close to what?"

You sigh. "I don't know. I guess we'll find out."

"Fair enough."

You think about having them hold your hand again, but they probably wouldn't enjoy the feeling of crusty blood and bone on their palms, and since it's now a sensitive subject between you two, you decide not to press it.

Behind the kid, there's what seems to be a pile of limbs being cooked in a sink. You didn't notice it at first, seeming as the burning smell didn't associate any surprise with you, as how horrid everything is in this place.

You're sure that Chara saw it too, but instead of making some snarky joke about it they push outside the restroom and wait for you. You don't know why you feel disappointed on their lack of commentary, probably because it escalates the true solemnity of the atmosphere.

You ignore the burning flesh too; no use paying too much attention to it. The one thing that bugs you instead is that as you're making your way through the darkness, Chara seems to be surging ahead of you rather purposely.

They don't want to look at you. They don't want to see what Trager did. 

And you can't say you blame them. 

But that doesn't mean it doesn't sting a little.

-

When you drop down from the open window, everything is on fire.

Chara is already on the other side, gazing into the flames licking up tables and chairs and even bodies. You'd assisted them upwards before yourself as usual, taking mind of their stature disabling access to the open window you just jumped out of.

The heat swims into your senses, causing your face to immediately take a moment to register the drastic change in temperature that has your eyes watering. Chara seems almost unfazed by the fire, but you keep in mind that they've had time to adjust to the hot atmosphere.

They observe the fire, seeming just as intrigued as you are. "What happened here?"

You don't smell any gas leak that could have caused this to be accidental, but it's not any of your concern, really. What matters is getting out of here quickly, in case there's a triggering explosion.

You hop over a lunch cart, and you're assuming that this was a cafeteria of some sort, maybe for patients or doctors. Looking back over at where Chara is following behind, you call to them, "Don't get close to the fire!"

They roll their eyes. "No shit."

The radiation of the heat causes your sight to waver, and you hold your bloody hand over your face to safely guide through the area without running into something that's on fire.

Through the haze, you see a Variant, hunched over on a table.

When you approach, you notice how solemn his expression is. "I had to burn it," he murmurs, without looking at you. "All of it."

He seems so sober in his tragedy that you almost question why he was admitted into an asylum into the first place. Maybe his case was similar to Chara's, where simply no one wanted to care for him.

"Murkoff took so much from us," he continues, voice wavering slightly. "Used us." He gestures helplessly with his hands as he continues to explain. "Turned us into these...things, because nobody cares about a few forgotten lunatics."

You forgot that you were still pressing your camcorder to your eyes and actively recording his tragic speech, but you're not going to stop here. You need for this man to regain the justice torn from him, and maybe the public will grant him such.

"So let it burn," he sighs. "Burn the whole thing down."

There's another pause, but finally he says, still without eye contact, "Get out. If you want to live, you can get out through the kitchen."

You look around, to where a sign for a kitchen might be, but you see none. Through your confusion, you decide to take the time to write a small note. You're lucky that Trager was unaware that you were left-handed when he removed your right index finger.

_We're not the only victims here, not by a long shot. I watch a man wait to burn to death, the most painful death imaginable, rather than stay in this place._

You purposely remembered the "we" this time. There's a sense of spite in acknowledging Chara being your companion throughout this adventure, because for a while there you were certain that they were gone. And to label them a victim, rather than a patient, is satisfying to you. Neither of you truly did anything wrong in this situation (although okay, you could have chosen to ignore the whistleblower and stay home), and maybe, like this Variant, you were all trapped in here by force and not by choice.

You forget that Chara is listening to the man's speech too, and as you turn towards an open door that could be encouraging, you call over your shoulder, "C'mon kid, let's head over here."

They don't follow your instructions. Their attention is all on the man.

It unnerves you, to see them so close to a Variant that could reach out and go nuts in the blink of an eye. But their body language seems almost friendly, and they almost appear to be talking with the man in question. You frown. What are they up to?

You try again. "Kid?"

This time, Chara looks over at you, but looking rather as though you interrupted a conversation. They say a quick goodbye to the man, who seems to give them a small nod of acknowledgment, before heading towards you.

When they reach you, you ask, "What was that about?"

Chara shrugs, but they seem more crestfallen than usual. "I just asked him if he wanted a bit of company, is all."

You frown. "'Keeping company' would be 'burning alive', in his case,"

"He seemed upset," they argue, tone seeming sharper than you last checked. "I know how he feels, you know. Sometimes people just don't want to be alone."

You feel like they're hinting at something, but you brush it away. "If the man wants to burn alive in here, that's his choice."

Chara looks at you firmly. "His name is Augustus, you heartless bastard."

At their sudden shift in attitude, you blink. Even they seem to recognize that they're being unreasonably harsh, and they sigh.

"Sorry," they mumble. "Let's just go."

Something is bugging them; there was a swift change in emotions from the time you entered that elevator shaft without them to seeing your lack of fingers. You can practically count the feelings they might be struggling with, since you don't blame them for being defensive as they try and figure something out in their heads. But you don't expose it, in fear of touching something that they'll recoil at more angrily.

Instead you motion them to the the open door, leaving the man— Augustus—to his desired fate to the flames.

As much as you'd love to allow the Variant to do as he pleases, especially since he was considerate enough to give you directions, you have to take out the fire. It's the only way to access the kitchen, and to follow Father Martin wherever he wants to take you. If you could operate the sprinkler system, then maybe you could have a chance of getting out without burning to death.

Again, Chara doesn't make any jokes on the situation, and you notice them taking a quick peek behind them, when they think you can't see them. They seem reluctant to leave their new friend, but they do so. Probably because Augustus understands the kid more than you ever will, however suicidal he may seem.

Then again, that may be a similarity you don't know about between the two.

You can't focus on that now.

-

In bold letters: _IF YOU'RE SEEING THINGS, SAY SOMETHING. There's no shame in Psychopathological Proximity Stress Disorder (PPSD). Talk to your supervisor to get help from a Murkoff Success Counselor._

The pamphlet sounds like nothing more than coaxing sheep into slaughter. You're not even sure if there's a legal diagnosis of said PPSD, and you're not counting the Murkoff psychopaths as trustworthy doctors. 

It sounds like they're just using any excuse imaginable to lure any patient into a Morphogenic Engine, whatever that even is. You can only gain snippets of the true horror based on Chara's recounts.

Speaking of, you spot them on the other side of the darkened room, plucking at a lonely radio left on one of the shelves. When they realize that the device is dead as a doorknob, they abandon it with a disappointed sigh.

"Nothing," they murmur under their breath. Then they notice that you've discovered another document. "What does it say this time?"

You consider lying and saying it's another file full of nonsense, but you don't, for whatever reason. "It's a pamphlet. They're instructing patients who are seeing things to come to them about it for help."

Chara scoffs acidly. "'Help'," they repeat, with a low tone. "They never wanted to help us."

It's interesting, hearing small hints of how Chara's experience in the asylum made them so bitter. You ask them, "What did the doctors tell you that you had?"

They find interest in a certificate planted on the wall, congratulating an employee for outstanding teamwork. "I don't fucking know. They just pretended to know what they were doing and expected me to buy it. I think one doctor mentioned something called....PTSD, I think?"

You pause. "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?"

"Is that what that means?" They shrug nonchalantly, unfazed by the diagnosis. "I thought it was just a bunch of bullshit."

It seems like the doctors were unclear with the patients and their mental illnesses. Making them so helpless under their superiority that they had no you've but to believe what the doctors told them. Unless they were perceptive on the situation like Chara, in which they couldn't escape Murkoff's dominance but they didn't have any other choice.

You don't probe Chara any more on PTSD, even if they had gained it before Murkoff-- and even they didn't have it before, you confident that they have it now in trying to escape this place. Still, It isn't a subject you're willing to pry, especially when they're suddenly so moody towards you.

But you end up saying, as you exit the room, "PTSD is a real thing, you know."

Chara sounds almost close to laughing. "Ask me if I give a fuck about my shitty brain."

You turn back to them sternly. "There's nothing wrong with you," you protest. But they roll their eyes.

"It doesn't matter," they grumble. "I could have lung cancer for all I care. Let's put out the fire and find the priest and get out of this god-forsaken building."

Before you can open your mouth to comment on their prickly attitude, they stomp out to the open, pushing past you and leaving you in the dark. They're angering you and pushing multiple buttons that you didn't know existed, from their lack of gratitude to their overall stubbornness. 

You almost begin to wonder if taking them along with you was a mistake from the start.

But you suck up your rage with a composure that comes from being an experienced adult, where you've learned that yelling at a person whose personal flexibility being equivalent to a brick wall is wasted breath. Maybe Chara will cool down later, once you've gotten the sprinklers to activate.

You realize the play on words in cooling down, and you audibly groan. This kid is rubbing off on you in all the wrong areas.

-

Whoever was in charge of providing water for the system must have taken a day off today. In order to get even a drop of water to fall from the sprinklers, you'd have to find at least two valves and see if you get lucky.

The good news of having Chara back around, however grumpy they may be, is that two is much better than one when it comes to turning on valves. You turn to Chara to explain it to them, but they stop you.

"Let me guess," they sigh. "The water isn't turning on, and now we have to separate to get it operating again."

You nod. "You take one, I'll take the other."

"Sure," they mumble caustically. "We just lost each other, let's lose each other again! Fantastic."

It's there that you realize a part of the problem. They're still stung at the fact that you'd accidentally left them to die. It doesn't matter if they escaped by dare you say a miracle. You still hurt something; being a significant figure in their life and the only person to show grace with them, you've been given a lot to live up to for this kid.

Maybe that's why your torn fingers scarred them so much. Because you're not special anymore; you can't always be there for them. You're just as capable as anyone here to get killed.

It's an understandable idolization to make, because this is still a child, however much Chara might protest otherwise.

You try to address this as gently as possible, given that you're not gifted in censoring yourself with honesty when it comes to other people.

"Kid, look." They perk up, but their gaze on you still isn't favorable. "I really am sorry. I didn't mean to leave you behind. But I made a mistake, and I'm going to not try and do it again."

Chara flicks their eyes away from yours darkly. "But you did," they whisper, "and it hurt."

"I _know_ it did," you urge. "But there's nothing that either of us can do right now but move forward."

They sigh heavily, suddenly seeming more emotional than before, rather than an apathetic wall. "Be honest with me, Upshur. Are you trying to get rid of me?"

You blink, immediately protesting, "No!"

"I just..." They hesitate, almost uncertain of themselves anymore. Their eyes are extremely worrisome. "I know I'm not too useful. The only thing I'm good for is throwing objects around as a distraction."

"I'm not expecting you to fucking solve world hunger," you furrow your eyebrows, confused at their lowering self-confidence. You're wondering where all this suddenly came from. "You're just a kid."

Chara snaps their gaze up to yours again, looking cross, like you've touched something sensitive. "I'm _not_ a kid!" They yell, almost too loudly.

You pause at their angry response, and they repeat, a bit lower, "I'm not a kid. I haven't been a kid for a long time."

"Bullshit," you snap. "I don't care what those doctors told you."

"Well _I_ do!" Chara exclaims, voice breaking at the syllables like glass. "Because no one ever gave a damn about some obnoxious little brat that couldn't choose a gender for themselves and couldn't get the Morphogenic Engine to work!"

They sound so upset that you don't bite back on their claim. Because it's not them that you're mad at, really.

They continue, tone wrenching into a whisper. "Everyone who ever associates themselves with me gets hurt in some way. I can't do a lot of things right, and I know that."

It's then that you notice their eye contact hasn't strayed from your fingers. And you realize that they're blaming themselves way more than they should be about what happened to them.

"I'm sorry," they whisper. "I shouldn't be giving you so much ado over nothing. But I've never...really had someone care about me before?"

Chara gives a heartless breath of laughter. "I know it's dumb. But I'm really, really new at this."

Reflecting at your horrid care for children in the past-- and just having a mutual bond with people, you reply, "You and me both."

This time, they do make a small effort to laugh, but it's not funny. "God, look at us," they smile sadly. "How did we end up in this mess?"

You don't want to even think about it. It's felt like an eternity since you were first thrown through that window that trapped you in this hellscape. Being free and all the memories before this night seem to blur into a nonexistent dream in your mind.

"We can still get out," you tell them, but they don't seem to be listening to your vote of confidence, only giving an absentminded nod.

"I mean it. Just a few more switches to pull and a trip to Father Martin and I swear we can do it."

Chara thinks for a minute, and this time their eyes are clearer when they nod, even though they're not smiling anymore. "I guess you're right. Not many people would have made it this far."

"Exactly," you agree. "To hell with Walker and everyone else. We can escape and then we can burn this fucking place to the ground all by ourselves."

Their eyes gleam at your plan. "Now that, I can get behind. To hell with Murkoff?"

They hold out a fist bump, and you return it, bloody fingers and all, with a nod. "To hell with Murkoff."

-

The minute you turn the corner, Walker's shadow has you retracing your steps faster than ever before, back into the room you just walked out of.

You shine Chara back into said room and close the door behind you. They don't even question why, instead glaring expectantly at the doorway. "Big guy again?"

"How did you know," you reply sarcastically.

"Lucky guess."

You suppress a groan. Fuck Walker and everything he stands for. Whatever he thinks he's trying to contain, he's nothing more than a menace, rather than a soldier attempting to fix what he believes is broken.

Chara gives an irritated sigh. "Well, now what do we do?"

There aren't really a lot of options here, unless Walker gets smart and decides to put out the fire himself. But for now, it's all up to you and the kid to set things straight here.

You glance at the empty sprinkler system downheartedly. "Only one thing to do, really," you say. "We each take one valve without being caught by Walker."

"Walker?"

"The big guy."

"Oh, okay." Chara takes another moment to calculate their own plan of escape before clicking their tongue decisively. "Good thing his name isn't Runner, right?"

You give a roll of your eyes at their joke, but there's a tiny part of you that's relieved that they're comfortable enough again for their cheesy humor.

There's nothing else to do but attempt to go where he was, at the end of the hallway breaking into two other corridors from what you saw. Seems like a reasonable place to separate, but the problem would be if, in a pinch, Walker might be only stalking those two hallways, so only one could go at a time, if that's the case.

You express your thoughts with Chara quickly, because you need to get moving pretty soon. They ponder for a moment, thoughtfully, before nodding.

"Walker can't see very well," they conclude. "I noticed the cataracts in his eyes in the dark. His vision is based entirely on sound, which is why my distractions work so well with him."

You marvel at their analysis. Not once have you even consider Walker's weaknesses, mostly because you were too busy running from him in too much horror to reflect on any of his facial features, outside of his stretched mouth exposing teeth too sharp for you to handle.

Yet you're not understanding where exactly they're headed with this. "So what do you say we do?"

Chara glares at the floor, their eyes dark with concentration. Then they sigh. "I have an idea, but I don't think it'll make a lot of sense."

"We're not going to try and take him in ourselves, are we?"

They chuckle. "Not where I was headed with that, don't worry." Then they say with a defeated tone, "I really don't want to separate. I mean, it's the most logical option. The more noise we make from our separate sides, the more confused we'll make him. He can only go after one person, and there's two of us."

"But?"

"But I don't want to."

You tighten your frown. "This wouldn't have anything to do with the elevator incident, does it?"

Chara hesitates. "Maybe a little. I just don't want to go different ways when there's not enough leg room to run around."

You're not fully on board, but you don't blame them for still being bruised on the idea of splitting up. And if you're honest with yourself, the concept of reuniting only to separate again isn't a favorable idea with you either.

So you agree.

"Okay, fair enough," you nod, and you notice how bright Chara's eyes begin to gleam at your consent on their plan. You pretend not to see it.

"So let's head this way first." You open the door and point to the right, where Walker's silhouette first appeared. "And you better have a couple of objects to throw around to distract him."

They give a small little grin and shuffle their hands in their pockets to expose a couple of knickknacks, picked up from who knows where. "I've got us covered."

You nod gratefully. "Awesome. Let's go."

-

When you activate the first valve and barely escape with your life— with Chara's tossing mechanics coming in handy more than a couple of times—you find yourself in a washroom.

The large windows provide no lighting, with the dark storm still raging outside. And most of the place seems so molded and filthy that you'd much rather not have any point of the room highlighted.

Farther down, you spot a man hovering over a bathtub, one of the many, seeming to be washing something whilst humming idly. When you both get closer, you see that the water is stained with red, and the slumped corpse of his friend doesn't affect the patient's bathing of the man in the tub.

He gives you a glance as he's splashing the blood on the body, unaware of the lifelessness and stench emitting from the companion.

"Do you have a dirty little ducky that needs cleaning?" he asks you, seeming playful and ignorant in his bliss.

You back away, unnerved at the sight, bringing Chara along with you. They look back at the scene as the Variant continues his bathing.

"I'd love a bath right about now," they murmur to themselves.

You don't comment; they probably don't mean they want any sort of confrontation with the man in question. You wonder how often they sanitized the patients of even cared about them earnestly in this asylum.

In the room ahead, door wide open, is the last valve you need to pull. Since Chara already attempted the other one, you pull this one without argument. The hiss of your actions clarifies that the deed has been done. You can head back now and successfully extinguish the fire.

Having Chara along, rather than being split up as usual, hasn't been too beneficial. Save for the moral support they provide through their presence— filled with bad jokes and way too much sarcasm for their own good. But you can't say that you're not relieved to have the repeating encouragement that they're back with you. Despite how their disappearance on your mission only lasted what you suppose was about an hour, it still stung.

"Back to the sprinkler system!" Chara announces, now ignoring the bathing patients as you head back. "I hope Augustus doesn't mind."

You peek around the corner, just in case the activation of the valve grabbed Walker's attention somehow from far away. But he seems to be pacing around in a different area, and you're not going to stick around to see if he comes to his senses.

"I'm sure he'll find another way to burn," you say.

Chara doesn't seem to take your off handed joke very lightly, as usual. Instead their triumphant smile seems to disappear, and instead leave some ghost of sadness upon hearing their friend's name.

"I feel really bad," they admit, as you saunter out into the lonely hallway. "Maybe we could have found some other way to the kitchen."

"Not likely," you disagree. "Did you see how much fire was in there? We'd burn about half of our body trying to get there."

"Well," Chara grins again, gesturing to their burnt shoulder, "I guess I'm already one-fourth of the way there."

This time, you're the one who seems to be offended on hearing their joke. You frown darkly and glare at their burn. "Don't."

Their smile dissipates in your tone. "Sorry..." they mumble, and they stay quiet.

When you slam your fist into the sprinkler's operating button, outside the room you hear water drizzling from the ceiling. Now that that's over, you can attempt to find Father Martin outside.

You find the rain soaking your shirt, and there's almost a feeling of refreshment on feeling the droplets attempting to wash your stained, dirty outfit. 

When you turn back to Chara, there's this moment of serenity dawning on their face, and they give something close to a satisfied smile.

"Having fun?" You ask, amused. They snap out of their peaceful trance immediately almost regrettably.

"Sorry, it's just," they sigh. "It's been a while since I've had a nice shower like this one." And they give you a smile, fairly sincere but still slightly strained. You don't blame them for enjoying this, if it's the only equivalence to bathing that they've had in a while.

While the cooling atmosphere is fairly replenishing, you make it to the kitchen with a quick pace, urging yourself to get out of here as soon as possible. You can take a shower later, when you're out of here for good.

-

The kitchen takes a while for you to find, since the cafeteria formerly illuminated by the flames has vanished into darkness, and you have to navigate through wasting batteries on infrared lighting and through the confidence of Chara's hiking throughout the shadows.

Inside, you're relieved to find a kitchen that's metallic, rather than deteriorating with neglect. It's a good thing that even insane doctors care about their food.

With Chara trailing behind, you walk forward and a second later someone is charging for your face. You recognize the man immediately as Augustus, and his expression tells you that he's not happy with you putting out his fire.

He screams at you, with you helplessly flailing against him, before he pushes you away and instead begins to sprint for the kitchen exit. You can't say with confidence that you can see what Chara sees in their friend.

Through your field of vision curtailed by your view on the floor, you notice that Augustus ran past Chara, almost it purposely making sure that they weren't in the way of his small panic attack. In return, they make room for him to escape back into the doused cafeteria, with a calm expression. 

They watch him go.

"I was half hoping he'd join us," they murmur.

You regain yourself off the floor and soothe your beating heart. "It's probably for the best," you pant, rubbing your jacket free from dirt off the floor.

There's a brief pause as you regain your breath, looking around the room that you hope is empty now, with no more angry Variants hiding around to surprise you. You don't hear anything, but just in case, you look around for any sort of abnormalities, aside from the dissected corpse splayed across one of the tables. But that's nothing too out of the ordinary.

Chara walks up behind you and finds an interest in the cabinets lined up all along the walls.

"Hold on," they tell you, and set out on a personal mission.

You watch them in confusion as they dig through drawers and cabinets, obviously looking for something very specific but not knowing where to find it. 

Meanwhile, in the dark yourself of how to help them, you decide to scavenge around yourself, with the spirit of adrenaline that not only comes from being locked up in an insane asylum, but from being an investigative reporter.

You find a door, hidden behind a set of cabinets that were brutally tossed around the room, and you open it. You thank god that nobody is waiting inside, about to jump you. Instead you notice a splotch of blood that differs from the white setting that the small room has, most likely originally used for storing vegetables and other foods before being served.

In a bowl, you notice a set of fingers, sliced off like yours, evenly placed along the dish as though it was an appetizer. It's the subtlety of the idea that has you remembering your own fingers.

You can't help but wonder what Trager originally intended to do with your limbs; perhaps make a cocktail or something.

It's sick, so you record it. It's almost a tame concept of insanity, if you think about it, and it infuriates you.

You angrily write in your journal: _I've said it before, but fuck this place. I've still got those fingers left._

Snapping your recorder and notes shut, Chara calls to you from the kitchen after a triumphant murmur that echoes across the room. You walk out to find them holding what appears to be something equivalent to wrapping, and a small, torn cloth.

They motion for you to join them where they're leaning over one of the silver counters, and you oblige curiously. They instruct, "Hold out your hands."

You do so. "Alright?"

They turn the bloodied hand over, gently as not to anger any of the flesh. You almost think they're going to perform some shitty magic trick, at the joke being your loss of appendages. But their gaze is insistent of something, so you make no comment.

It's when they tear off a piece of one of the cloths and press it gently to the end of your sliced knuckle that once held your ring finger that you realize what they're doing.

You almost snatch your hands away. "Kid--"

"Shut up," they murmur, voice low with concentration. You don't know why you listen and simply watch as they grab one of the wrappings and tie it to hold the little cloth in place. When they're happy with their work, they move on to the next hand.

You mind is going blank, instead focusing on how swift their handiwork is upon cleaning off the extra blood with the last snippets of the fabric and proceeding to wrap the wounds. You cringe a few times, having them hit a spot where your nerves are raw, and they mumble a distracted apology as they finish the job.

When they strap the last bandage on your hands, they give your wrist a small, satisfied little pat to indicate that they're done.

"There," Chara says, seeming pleased. "All better."

You bring your now-bandaged hands off the counter for you to observe them. It's not much, logically, but it helps to conceal the wounds rather than expose it any more to the cruel environment. Plus, it might help in clotting up the blood a little more. You wouldn't have thought of having the time to do it yourself.

Something warm rushes into your chest, a bit stronger than simply gratitude. You give a thankful glance at Chara. "Thanks, kid," you tell them.

Their eyes return your smile, although it takes another minute before they allow the pleased emotion to cross into a grin on their face. "I'm just returning the favor, is all."

They point to their own covered wound on the shoulder. "You help me, I help you. It's only fair."

There's a hallway to your right, where you assume you can find an exit. You sweep the kid closer to your side and end up affectionately rubbing their head, messing up their hair even more so quite playfully, with your binded hand.

Chara lets out a chuckle before pulling themselves away, beaming at you mischievously. "You're a sap, you know that?"

You shrug. "It's the least I could do."

This time, an actual smile grows on their face, causing their eyes to crinkle. "Yeah," they murmur, and you think they're going to say more, but they rush out to the hallway to avoid any more confrontation.

"Hurry up, old man!" They call over their shoulder. "We've got a priest to find!"

And for the first time in a long time, you give a careless, sincere smile as they wait for you at the end of the hallway. The smile doesn't go away for a good while, and you don't think about what might have brought it on, you just enjoy its presence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know people wanted Chara to cross paths with Trager, but that was never really my intention! I was always kinda secretly upset that Miles never really had time to reflect on what happened outside of "I want my fingers back", and Chara was that person who brought into light the subject in a way I wanted it to happen! Miles being alone in that turning point in the game was always intended; having a child would have probably not been ideal, and I could never insert them into that scene while feeling pleased with the result
> 
> Also, Miles please bandage up your nasty hands ingame because walking around with your wounds and bones exposed is probably not very sanitary (thank god at least _someone_ had common sense in that department)
> 
> But yeah, both are very touchy about what happened and this is all according to plan, don't worry! Although I'm very glad that I didn't have to write out the whole "losing fingers" charade, haha sorry Miles


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alt: The problem with being destined for failure is that it doesn't matter who accompanies you because you're just going to drag them down with you too

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter centers heavily on dissociation and panic attacks and methods on how to cope with said panic attacks
> 
> We're getting close to the end, though!
> 
> Also let's please appreciate the latest Murkoff Account comic because now we know Miles uses too much hairspray and has a cluttered house/apartment and I think that's really important

The outside isn't exactly what you would call an upgrade, but it'll have to do.

It's just as dark outside as it was inside, not to mention that you're beginning to feel irritated with the rain, since you were already showered by the sprinklers in the kitchen. But the fresh air is still relaxing, so you'll take what you can get.

Chara, meanwhile, seems to be gazing at the storm above in a sense of awe. You're thinking otherwise, since the lightning above is messing with your infrared.

"Holy shit," they breathe, and they look at you with gleaming eyes. "We're outside!"

There's something about their tone that has you wondering what seed of doubt they'd originally had in the first place. But they almost gaze at the bony trees like they're a gift from above, and they look close to holding out their tongue to catch the water droplets like snowflakes.

You frown. "When was the last time you were outside?"

Chara shrugs, finding interest in wriggling their socks on the grass, admiring the earth's texture. "Weeks, maybe? Months? I was never outside here."

You pause. "So, before you were admitted into Murkoff then?"

They nod, half listening as they take their sweet time walking over to where you're waiting for them, near a flooding fountain. "I think so."

Before you can ask anything else, Chara seems drawn back into the rainy landscape with childish wonder. "Do you think they have any flowers out here for patients? Or gardens?"

You kill the mood with your honesty. "Probably not."

They dampen immediately at your reply, like you sucked all their fantasies right out of their mind with a simple reply. 

They mumble, "Yeah, most likely not."

Still, as you walk blindly through the courtyard, Chara pipes up, "It would've been thoughtful if they'd at least planted a few buttercups here and there."

When you turn back to check on where they are, they catch your gaze with a flimsy smile, as though to brighten the mood. "Those are my favorite flowers."

"Noted." You're occupied in making sure that everything is safe for now to fully make sense of what they're saying. "Do you see Father Martin anywhere?"

There's a pause, and before you glance back to make sure that Chara isn't off daydreaming again, they reply, "Not yet. Did he say where we're supposed to meet him?"

You shake your head, getting frustrated now that you're being played right back into Father Martin's hands; being strummed like a fiddle. "No. That's the problem."

"Hm." Chara leaves the conversation at that, looking around with their heightened vision to see if they can spot something that you can't.

Every now and then you see something, and you think through the haze of the rainfall that there's something there. Like some pair of eyes, or presence, is following you. It's paranoia that you try to convince yourself is stalking your every move, but every now and then you'd catch a glitch in the camera of a shadow, or a distant scream unbeknownst to the human tongue.

You find yourself breathing harder, like just hearing the dying moan is igniting some fleet of terror, and you recognize this raw awakening of fear as the same fear that you recall from in the sewers, from that shadow.

If you move closer to where you assume is your destination, it gets louder and harder to ignore. You even notice Chara straining their ears, but the scream doesn't have the same effect on them as it does to you. You almost feel foolish, but every time to attempt to stuff away your horror, it reopens with every waning cry like salt in an open wound.

You eventually trail up a stairway where there's a document lying in the middle of two crossroads. The abnormality of it being placed there makes you believe that the location of the file was intentional, and you scoop it up curiously. It's as you shove the file that you notice the dark words scrawled on the wall, "How Alive Are You?"

_I don't even know your name. But I've come to think of you as one of my blood, my Paul, I hope you don't mind. And I hope you don't indulge the vanity of self-pity, the fear that your suffering is more than others'._

You grit your teeth angrily as you read on. _We all must endure this, and you are nearly done. There's no way to heaven but by the cross. And every man needs another to help drive the nails in. I am here for you. I am waiting ahead._

Stuffing the document away, there's a feeling of this melancholic dependence that comes from Father Martin's words. He assures you that you're close, and he's doing this for a purpose. But he doesn't know your name.

"Miles?"

You turn back to Chara, who, unlike Father Martin, has actually been there for you and who actually _knows_ your name.

"Yeah?"

They point to the different stairways, in different directions. "Which way should we go?"

Both ways are closed off, and when you encounter them neither seem willing to negotiate with you. Looks like there's no way around it, and if Father Martin was being quite literally in him waiting straight ahead, to where he dropped his note, then you're going to have to find another way around.

You turn to Chara. "Let's head back."

They raise an eyebrow, uncertain. "Why?"

You heave an exhausted sigh. If only it was lighter outside. "I don't know. I have no clue what I'm doing," you admit tiredly.

When you look at Chara through your camera, you catch a mischievous gleam in their expression. "You're just now realizing?" they tease.

"Do you have a better idea?" you argue.

They shrug, heading back down the steps with more ease than you. "Not at all. But it's fun to mock other people." They peek over their shoulder at you with a trademark grin. 

You give them a disapproving stare. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it!" they chirp, and without cue they result in taking the lead. You follow wordlessly, and for some reason their humor has resulted in you having to tug back a small smile.

-

Something is waiting for you back at the fountain.

The lightning illuminates the area, if only for a split second, and past a slumped body of an officer on a bench, standing on the foundation. You see it.

It's a figure, clothed in black. But when you stop and stare at it, the black becomes a swarm that engulfs its body until you realize that it is its body. The figure has no face, which is already unnerving. But the moment you stare at where you assume its eyes would be placed, your breath is hitched in your throat, and you can't breathe. You feel nothing but fear by looking at it.

When it moves, it hovers, advancing towards you. And you panic. Backing into Chara, you stuff them behind your back with them giving a squeak in protest. The thing advances, and your eyes register the possibility of it being a ghost. When it screams, you recognize the moaning as the one that you'd heard earlier, and the shadow as the one from the sewers.

Fear is pounding in your veins, almost artificially. Like it's summoning some deep horror rooted in your encounters at the asylum that you'd stuffed away.

When it creeps towards you, it dissipates into the air with a whisper. You find air again when it's gone.

Chara tugs on your jacket, and you almost jump out of your skin. You peek behind to see them giving you a ruffled glare.

"You're really touchy-feely, you know that?" they give you a thankless grumble as they detach themselves from your grip and make a show of brushing off their clothes.

Their lack of thanks has you gaining a sharp attitude to cover your current reawakening of fear. "You're welcome. I may have just saved your life," you snap.

Chara scoffs. "I thought I told you to stop risking your life for me."

You turn back to the fountain, just to make sure that the ghost is gone. Or whatever it was. 

"I'm not the best at listening," you mumble.

"I noticed." Chara saunters behind, obviously unfazed by the figure, and you're wondering if your mind is seriously playing tricks on you now.

"So you didn't see that ghost," you pry.

Chara throws back their head with a loud, exaggerated groan. "You're _still_ talking about that?"

You shush them quickly; you're not confident yet that you're all alone out here. "I just saw something again," you try to explain, adding desperation to your claim. "Did you not see it?"

"It's not like I could see anything with you shoving me into your back," they roll their eyes.

"Just trust me on this," you beg. You just need clarification that you're not crazy; that's all you want.

Chara doesn't answer right away, instead taking a hand and smoothing their soaking hair in the rain. They stare at the bones of the trees, lost in thought, before they finally allow themselves a tiny nod without looking at you.

"Okay," they murmur, and their tiny voice blends in with the rainfall. When they look back at you, their eyes are dark with consideration. "So what if there's a ghost? What can we do about it?"

You look at the corpse of the man on the bench. You wonder what predicament he found himself in, to die there. Was he bleeding to death, and decided to take a rest?

The fountain is flooding now, with no sign that anything ever existed. The screaming is but a distant hum in the back of your head, but Chara has a point. There's nothing you can do but what you've been doing: try and get out.

"I don't know," you admit.

Chara nods. "That's okay."

You look at their face; they suddenly seem more understanding than before at your predicament. They give you another nod for clarification.

"It's okay," they repeat. "We don't need to figure it out right now."

They're wrong. Everything is itching to find a cure for whatever is singing in the back of your mind. It's like there's a screaming chorus on mute in your brain, ever since that thing first appeared, you realize. It's been following you around, waiting for you to notice that your subconscious is acting a little more wonky than usual. You want it to stop, in case it gets worse.

But you lie, and you agree with them, just so they can relax a bit. As an adult, you're the one who has to carry the bigger burdens, despite Chara's belief of their nonexistent adolescence. You'll find some way around, and then you can get back inside and find some answers.

"Alright, no more ghost hunting," you say. "Let's go."

Chara perks up with surprise, but they seem pleased regardless. "That's better. We're not afraid of no ghosts!"

You beg to differ, but they're already skipping ahead, so you follow.

-

The thing is whining at you again, moaning some sort of siren tune that mesmerizes you into an almost hypnotic state of terror. The shadows dance to the bittersweet melody, almost torturing you with swarms of black spots lurking around in the dark.

If Chara noticed them before, they seem to completely ignore it. They're closing the door to the shed you just entered, where you'd found a key to another Maintenance Shed. You'd figured it could be useful.

"Hey," their soft tone helps you clear your head some, but not quite. "Are you okay?"

You don't know how much of this raw fear is exposed on your face, but all you know is something won't stop humming. It's like an itch that you can't scratch.

You lie again, and nod. "Yeah, I'm alright," you tell them, but they don't seem convinced. "I'm just...seeing things."

Chara's attention on you doesn't waver, instead their gaze becomes more piercing, more attentive. "Seeing what?"

You stutter at their seriousness. "Just...fog. And black. And I'm hearing voices."

They seem to be growing concerned, so you cover your tracks. "Kid, I'm really okay," you say, but you might as well have said nothing at all.

Chara doesn't say anything. The voices are singing louder in the back of your head, and your heart is beating faster than it should be.

They walk past you again, signifying that it's time to move on, closure on the subject or not. You trail behind them, feeling somewhat guilty that you'd let them in on such a sensitive topic.

As you hike through the courtyard, blind and aware of every moving bush and every drop of rain with heightened perception, Chara stops to match your pace.

"One of my doctors once told me," they begin, uncomfortable but determined, "to start simple. Start with what you know."

You peek at them with confusion. "What I know?"

They give you a look similar to mentally rolling their eyes at you. "There's got to be _some_ action in that thick head of yours, numbskull. You should know a thing or two."

You stare at the droplets soaking the grass. _What you know. Start simple._ You'd do anything to stop the voices from screaming.

You are Miles Upshur. You are twenty-six years old. You are an investigative reporter. You traveled to Mount Massive Asylum for a report. You're stuck in the asylum. There's a lot of crazy people roaming around. You think something is following you.

You're wallowing in a pit too shaky for you to catch a firm grip on, and you feel yourself beginning to panic.

Through the haze, you hear Chara ask you, "What did you tell me your favorite color was?"

You think. You were in the sewers. They'd said something close to an insult, where you remarked something in order to defend your status. It's a fuzzy memory, which scares you, because it happened not too long ago. But eventually as you probe your brain, you answer, "Blue."

There's a level of uncertainty hidden in your voice, afraid that they'll give you a pitiful look as they correct you, saying that it was actually yellow or red or something.

You're relieved to see that Chara is nodding in approval. Meaning that you said the right thing.

"And what did I say my favorite color was?" they ask.

When they told you, you remember being distracted. It was more of an offhanded comment, so it takes a bit longer to scrape up your crappy memory of said event.

"Lime green?"

Their eyes shine. "Hey, look at that! Looks like there _is_ activity in that noggin of yours."

Chara seems more pleased that you recalled something about them, however tiny it may be. Maybe they take it as a sign that you care, or something. You wonder how many people know what their favorite color is.

You realize that however random their questions seemed, they helped in helping the voices fade into something equivalent to a dream. They're still there, if you focus hard enough, but it's more like tolerable background noise than anything else. Whatever power it held over you isn't as strong anymore. Chara's method in distraction worked.

Before you can stop and thank them, they're already shaking the locked door ahead of you in impatience. "You have the key, right?" they call to you.

You nod and remove said object from your jacket pocket. When you're close enough, you hand it to them. "Here."

Chara gives a smile. "Thank you," they say politely, and with a few clicks the door opens.

They let you go first, as it's an automatic rule now that when you wander around in unfamiliar territory inside, it's your job to search the area first. Chara can take the lead outside, where you feel a bit more secure in letting them roam around.

There had to be some significance in Father Martin having you enter the Maintenance Shed, rather than having you blindly running around in a park at night, and that drives you forward. It seems foolish to head back inside, where monsters await and there's not as much open space to run around and hide in as outside. But you'd already checked along the outer rims of the courtyard; the fence is barbed and prickly, and there's no way to escape into the mountains. Back inside it is.

There's a way to the right, where a closed door is waiting. The other way doesn't seem satisfactory, as told through Chara's grunts of disappointment when they run into a dead end at the end of the dark hallway. You head forward, clicking on your infrared.

When you open the door, there's a whisper that's so close to a scream that you feel the mental stitch that Chara had mended through their calming exercises tear open. Everything is on lockdown.

That's not the worst part. The worst part is that the figure you saw at the fountain is _right in front of you._

It surges forward, eyes now coming into existence with pupils that pierce directly into yours. You can hear Chara scream from behind you as it's non-corporal form attacks you, and you fling backwards in a moment of a fear so great that your heart isn't beating anymore.

And then it's gone.

You nearly crumple to the floor with this incomprehensible layer of horror, never experienced before. Not with Walker, not with the Twins, not with Trager. Nothing has scared you more than that ghost.

Your brain is on lockdown. Everything needs a reboot and you know you need to regain yourself for you, for the kid, for everything that's on the line. But you can't. You don't know how. It's not like your fear is out of your control and someone else is able to toy with it. It's like the ghost represented the dark corners of your thought where you'd shoved all distractions of the asylum in your brain, and it had woken up every single aspect of fear and terror and apprehension you'd encountered in here.

You don't notice the tiny set of hands coming to grab your bandaged ones firmly, until something outside your haze of panic is able to grasp a hint of another voice somewhere. Saying your name over and over, each time more concerned than the last.

The syllables. Focus on the syllables of your name. Drive everything back into its corner.

Something is squeezing your wrists gently, then releasing them. Then squeezing, then releasing. It's a pattern, you realize. And you begin to hyper focus on each bones hidden beneath the flesh of the set of hands as they squeeze, then release, then squeeze, then release. You match your breathing to the rhythm, unknowingly, and your head becomes less foggy as you regain your heart speed. You just need to focus on the present. You have to focus.

When you come to, properly, you blink as you readjust yourself to the surroundings. The figure is gone, and the only sound is the rumble of thunder from outside the shed. The pattering of rain against the rooftops. And your heavy breathing echoing off the brick walls.

Chara is looking at you, deeply and earnestly. Their eyes are glazed with layers and layers of sympathy. But there's also a spark of confidence, of which you can't say you understand. With a final squeeze, they slowly release your hands, like you'll explode if they let go of you.

You don't. Your mind is swirling with anxiety and tiny voices and buzzing. But you don't explode.

They give you a tight frown. "So that was the ghost, I'm guessing," they murmur, softly as though they're afraid to speak up.

You look down at your hands. Your bloody, wrapped hands missing more digits than they're supposed to. And you stiffly nod.

Chara says nothing, and makes no move to touch you or comfort you. So for a moment, you both stay on the floor, silent. You listen to the gentle rapping of raindrops, and you wonder how many have landed on the roof ever since you'd been paying attention to the storm.

They're the first to make an effort to stand back up, and you follow in their lead rather pitifully. You feel old. Your back is aching, your ribs are broken, your fingers are gone, and you're tired. And hungry.

Your immature complaints and acknowledging their pointlessness is what snaps you back upright. Chara gives you a long look, and you believe that they're waiting for clarification that you're okay. But you're not. The thing, whatever it was, has made you the opposite of okay. The buzzing grows louder. There is no source of it.

"It's gone," you try hoarsely, and you cough to regain your lost voice.

Chara doesn't budge. "You're not okay," they observe, barely above a whisper.

"I am," you protest, more so to convince yourself than them. "I'm fine."

"You had a panic attack."

That was one way to describe what that was. You hadn't had a bad attack like that since...god, you can't even remember. Then again, you do recall forgetting what your favorite color was, so it's not like your memory is reliable right now.

The seeping tendrils around your brain begin to cool with your thoughts and entwining with the buzzing and the voices, creating a perfect orchestra of horror that has you shaking your head to chase the darkness away for now.

"I'm okay now," you tell them promptly. "Let's move."

Seeing as there's no point in arguing, Chara moves forward, taking a small glance back over at you before continuing. The remembrance of you being the leader has your feet inching forward, until you can properly tug Chara back behind you. They don't argue, only seeming a bit surprised. But they say nothing.

The silence is deadly. It leaves you alone, with your voices and this humming that won't beat to anything but it's own drum. It tests sanity, the only precious thing you have left to lose. You need to focus; you can't have distractions.

The ghost comes to mind, haunting your gaze and following you with eyes you can't see and twirling your organs around on its fingertips. There was a myth you'd heard so long ago, about a creature known as Walrider. Synonymous with night terrors and everything bad that could ever happen in the dark. Nothing more than a folklore.

The blood on the walls, singing its name over and over like a dying plea. Father Martin's hyper-religious claims of a lord ripping truth into its heretics. The whistleblower had stated that Murkoff was looking for something in the mountains.

Everything clicks.

When Chara's back is turned, you open to a blank page in your journal, and you shakily write:

_God help me. I think I've seen the Walrider._

-

It's a while before something you'd label as "interesting" happens. There's parkour here and there, with sneaking along wet planks of wood and jumping over fences and walls. 

A few run ins with a couple of secluded patients (one asks you, "How do we know you're not a patient?" Chara scoffed; you found yourself pondering), but overall nothing too concerning.

Chara hasn't spoken to you since your panic attack. At least, they don't seem mad at you. The only talk you two have made is when you're instructing their footing so they don't slip and fall, and they take your advice without question. But they seem distant, not in the way as when you'd disappointed them. Maybe they don't know what to do anymore to help you. 

It's not their job to help, you know that. But maybe they don't.

When the lightning brightens your infrared, you catch sight of a large man wandering the courtyard, in a familiar pace and grumbling that has you ducking Chara into a nearby bench.

"What?" They find the decency to whisper, upon seeing your reaction.

"Walker."

"Again?" They sound just as irritated as you now, but they keep their voice at a minimum volume.

You nod, flinging your gaze back and forth to calculate an escape route. Nearby is an area that you could duck into, where he can't follow. And it's not too far away. That's your best bet for now.

When you approach where you want to go, it's caged off. Even the doors that are meant to be entered are locked, from what it looks like. And with Walker roaming around, you're not one to become risky in going to jam on a door that might not work. You need to be careful.

There's a platform that you can jump onto that carries you to where you assume might be another way out. If that enlightened tunnel is betraying safety, you feel your hope slowly ebbing away. It dissolves into the buzz in the back of your head, which you've begun to ignore for now when there are other priorities at hand.

You motion Chara forward, quietly, and with haste you make your way to the platform. You let Chara climb up first, as you'd rather be the one stuck here a little longer with Walker than allow them to be in any more danger. It helps, also, when you feel a boot slip on the unstable wood, soaked with rain, and they reach forward to grab your jacket and help you steady yourself. You mumble a small thanks, and they nod, but they move ahead before you get to say anything else.

Eventually the wooden bridge corners you both, and the only way to go is down. Luckily, there's a closed dumpster within your reach that you can jump down from without breaking an ankle.

Another swing through a lonely gazebo and the discovery of another battery, and eventually you reach the other side of the fence. All you had to do was loop around so you could reach what appears to be a tiny sewer. All you'd noticed before was the light that was obviously directing you to your next destination.

When you step down, Chara beside you rather than behind or forward, you catch Walker's attention.

He's waiting for you on the other side of a set of stairs, parallel to you. He's so close to you that you do a double take before realizing that there's no time. You sprint for the entryway, grabbing Chara's wrist in the process to drive them forward.

You'll give Walker credit here. He can run down a set of stairs pretty fast for his size. It's automatic now, to shove both of you down rather painfully into a stairway and through an entry that is so close to the ground that you wouldn't be surprised if you'd scraped your knees from crawling under there so quickly.

Honestly, you're surprised that you even passed Walker that fast. You were certain that he would have snagged your jacket or something as you crouched under. Maybe it's hard for him to reach down, you don't know. But you don't care either, so long as you're out of his grip.

It's not Walker anymore that scares you. Sure, the guy is an inconvenience, and you wouldn't want to be alone with him in a small room. But it was the Walrider that really took the cake for having a hold of your sanity. Even if it didn't truly attack you, there's something ringing in your brain, and if you blink, there's something waiting for you that you can't quite make out. Some sort of white noise that dissipates and reforms when you close your eyes. Even if you ran halfway across the world, you feel like you couldn't escape it.

You crawl your way into another area. Now you just have to find Father Martin somewhere near here. He'd stated he was ahead, but that was so long ago and you'd swerved through so many nooks and crannies that you'd forgotten where exactly "ahead" was. You recall a sign locating to a Female Ward, and for some reason reaching that location seems to be promising. It's better than messing around in the dark and wasting more batteries.

Chara recovers from being shoved across the floor with a huff of frustration. They skim their socks for any holes gained, and you find one part of their shin has been battered up from you pushing them into the gravel in order to get into the entry. You feel guilty, but if you weren't distracted you'd let the feeling properly sink in.

Instead, you make yourself useful and kneel down to gently brush off any remains of dirt next to the small wound. Chara allows you without further inspection, and they toughen out when you touch the cut firmly in order to rid the wound of any other traces of filth that could threaten infection.

You look up at them. "You good?"

They nod, looking the slightest bit amused at your caretaking. "Never better." They reach down themselves to soothe the dripping blood, however little it may be. You allow them to and step back, pleased with your work.

Up ahead, when you look to your right, a deep hue of red catches your attention. It's a fountain, like before with the Walrider, but with a dark pool of blood in its center rather than water. Corpses float in the liquid like dead fish. The air is so thick with the stench that you almost gag on it.

Chara scrunches up their face when the smell hits their senses; they say nothing but give a small groan of disgust. You notice that they're very close to your side now, so that their head is almost touching your arm.

You record in your journal: _So much blood I can smell it. Like putting a penny in your mouth when you were a kid._

The coppery taste has you licking your lips, hoping to rid yourself of the sensation somehow but to no avail. The buzzing gets louder in your ears.

 _The whispers are making more sense,_ you write with a grimace. _I'm looking for static. It's like an itch._

Looking back, your ominous message may question rationality. But you need to address how you feel properly, without Chara's knowledge. Something isn't right anymore, and the fact that you can't put your finger on it has you inquiring answers over in your brain. You come up with nothing but the buzzing chorus, and when you blink you see deformed static flashing in your pupils.

Both of your feet are no longer firmly placed on the ground. Now you have one foot on logic, the other abandoned in the asylum. Maybe you deserve to rot in here.

The feeling of something pulling your arm has you turning, drifty, back to Chara's gaze. They don't seem pleased with you.

"You're doing it again," they report, sharply.

You blink. Static. "Doing what?"

Their eyes narrow, but more in confusion at your own unclarity. "You're dissociating."

Is that what it is? You don't know. One part of you is missing, ebbing away with every pulse that radiates through your brainwaves. One final encounter could leave you in the dust.

Chara seems upset when you don't answer. You don't know what to say.

Instead they bring a comforting hand to your arm, and the presence of having something solid weighing you back down to earth has you focusing on their arm, just to have something drawing you back into the present.

"What's your name," Chara says, their tone derived of question and it comes out as more so of a statement.

You pause. "Miles Upshur."

"Where are we."

"Courtyard."

"Where's the Walrider."

You want to say that the Walrider is somewhere here, maybe it lodged itself in your brain somehow. That explains the constant whirring, thrumming your heartbeat like an instrument.

"I-it's gone. It's not here."

Chara gives another strained attempt at a smile. They give your elbow a reassuring squeeze before letting their arm fall limp, back to their side.

"That was a practice one of my doctors told me," they explain. "It's like the 'starting simple' method, but with someone instructing you."

You nod, finding it easier to grab onto their words and give it meaning. "It works," you tell them, and they seem happy at your approval. "Thank you."

Chara leads you away from the fountain of blood, which you're fine with. As you're scavenging the darkness for an entrance into the Female Ward, Chara grabs your hand again.

"I'm going to ask you again," they say. "Are you okay?"

You don't appreciate this new system where Chara is acting like the adult in the situation, and that's what has you stomping your foot back into the present, buzzing or not. You need to think and focus, that's not so much to ask.

"I'm okay," you clarify, and your voice is stronger than when you'd originally promised them this. "The sooner we're out of this place, the better."

You find that Chara is convinced by your tone, and they give you a relieved glance. "Thank god. I thought you were going nuts."

They step backward to trail a bit behind. You're happy that it signifies that they feel safer around you, rather than having you be a loose cannon. It helps you remember your position in this journey, and the buzzing can take a rest in your subconscious for now.

You look back over to them, still holding their hand. "We're close. I swear we are."

Chara gives a tight smile. "I hope so."

The quiet that follows has the voices throbbing in your brain, begging for attention. It's Chara's hand swinging yours behind you rather playfully that keeps you grounded.

-

Father Martin's voice catches you as it echoes loudly against the empty rooms.

"You saw the Walrider, didn't you?" he exclaims, sounding jubilated at your torturous experience. "You're beginning to understand!"

You're drawn to a huge area, depleted and filled with garbage that makes it impossible to cross. But up above, there's a ledge that you spot Father Martin's lantern piercing into the ceiling. You feel his twisted excitement radiating across the empty Ward.

"But not yet," he says. "Even Abraham had to cast his eyes to the ground. But soon, soon!"

His flashlight wavers along the torn wood that holds splinters and uneven spaces. Any hope of even attempting to cross to where he is has been lost.

He turns back, motioning you forward. "This way!" he calls. "Revelation is at hand!"

You're not sure you want to find out what exactly Father Martin is planning, but at this point, if he gave you even a hint of freedom, you'll take it.

Chara seems puzzled at Father Martin's disappearance, their gaze following to where he's disappeared. "Walrider? Is that the ghost?"

You nod, remembering that you never told them exactly that you'd concluded what the Walrider specifically is. You'd assumed it was a metaphorical symbol, rather than an actual being.

"Yeah, it is."

"Oh, okay. That makes more sense." They release your grip on their hand in order to explore, satisfied with the answer you'd given.

The Female Ward is empty, from what you've seen. Just tossed furniture that makes the room barren, save for the occasional blood puddle on the floor. The hallways are similar to the ones back near the kitchen, and you navigate with ease.

It's a while of running through empty corridors and vaulting over desks, with nothing but Chara's silent humming to fill the ambience. They're singing a small tune you don't recognize, possibly something that they've created themselves simply to pass the time. Either way, it's a good method in helping you ignore the constant thumping in the back of your head.

When you spot a figure sauntering into a nearby room, you begin to pay more attention to your surroundings.

An echo of what's occurring in your brain begins to partake in reality, you realize. There's a steady pounding somewhere close to you. When you inspect the room next to you, there's what seems to be some sort of machine. It's rapping a heavy object around and around the black mist encasing the machinery. 

Thump. Thump. Thump. The pattern is hypnotic to you, rather than a tune you'd cover your ears from.

The mesmerization of said sound has you breaking out your notes again.

_The sound of the machine, like the sound in my head when the Walrider appeared. I blink and I see static, something else. Something oily and dark descending behind my eyelids. Watching me with organs I can't imagine. But the sound is coming from the machine, too. From inside the walls. I know that sound..._

You blink again, testing your words. The images your brain shows are dark and gruesome. Whatever is waiting for you in sleep, you don't want to know. Some ghastly figure is crawling around in your brain, and eventually Chara has to pull you away from the machine as you stare into the dark fog, looking for answers.

They're unfazed. You don't know if they can hear it. Maybe you really are going mad.

"Hey. I said let's go." Chara's voice is sharp. "I thought you said you were done zoning out."

You almost want to look back at the sound's source. But you don't. You tell Chara that you're okay, to stop worrying so much, and push on ahead. 

You can pretend, for now, that there's nothing wrong. So long as the kid isn't worried about you. Not as much as you're worried yourself, at the least.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alt: It gets worse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a heavy scene featuring asphyxiation and proceed with caution for those who are slightly emetophobic. The chapter also features implied self-harm (via scratching), past child abuse, suicidal ideations, and more panic attacks and dissociative episodes via Walrider

_THE WALRIDER, also known as an "Alp", "Mara", or "Schrat", is a demonic creature of German origin that torments sleepers. They crouch on a sleeper's chest and crush the breath from him. The sleeper wakes terrified, paralyzed, and asphyxiating. The name "Mara" gives us the word "nightmare". Sexual assaults by the demon are rare, but it has been known to drink milk from the breasts of sleeping women, and blood from the nipples of sleeping men._

You cower at the last sentence. Everything else is similarly spot on to what you'd experienced when facing the Walrider, and it soothes you to know that despite encountering a German demon, this file is able to put words to how you'd felt during that time.

Chara notices your interest in the document as they paw through empty file cabinets. "Is everything okay?"

You do something that you hadn't expected yourself to do. You hand Chara the document without another word. You don't trust your voice anymore to say how you feel in front of a child.

With an inquiring look, they take the file from your hand and scan through the content. They're slower than you when it comes to reading, you notice, but you say nothing. Not everyone has the quick abilities to skim a page like a reporter.

Chara catches a glimpse at the last sentence with a scrunch of their face and a mumbled, "Gross." They close the file and hand it back to you.

"So that explains why you freaked out so much when it appeared," they say, voicing your thoughts.

You nod. The movement makes the buzzing increase and has your head spinning unnecessarily. "The problem is, what's a Walrider _doing_ in this place?"

Chara shrugs. "I wouldn't be surprised if Bigfoot was walking around this asylum. This place is a portal to all things terrible."

Despite their pessimistic outlook, they have a point. There had been a couple of files before hinting that Murkoff was founded off of Nazism beliefs, which explains why the Walrider's origins are from Germany. Considering logical matters, the fact that there's a demon stalking this asylum causes more questions. Was it drawn to this place because of the evil that occurred here, or is the Walrider the source of the madness?

You don't know. You've never believed in ghosts in your life, valuing reason over fantasy. Project Walrider comes to mind, but it doesn't soothe your curiosity. Were they trying to summon something outside of their control? And if so, what was the purpose?

You're so confused, and the thumping in your brain isn't helping at all.

It's enough, though, to stuff away the folder and motion Chara out of the cramped stairway you crawled under. The static is getting worse, but you ignore it for now in favor of Chara taking your hand and pulling you like you're a resistant dog on a leash.

"This place gives me the creeps," they mutter, but their body language appears more reserved than usual.

It's you that ends up squeezing their hand, in order to get them to perk up, and they return the gesture a bit harder, with their fingernails digging into your palms.

-

"Nearly here!" Father Martin urges, his lantern shining in your face. "You can cross from the upper floors!"

You can't reach where he is, but at least you're glad you've gotten some clarification. You've been wandering this empty building— well, somewhat empty—for what feels like hours. Way too long to be left alone; at least in the sewers you were underground with a bit more confidence that you could let your guard down quicker.

It's not like you haven't been trying to reach the upper floors in the first place. You're beginning to feel like everything these priest says is old news; but if he can get you out— and if he has answers about the Walrider—then you have no choice but to play his game.

Chara has reached a point in caring less about Father Martin and his instructions. By the time you've turned around to check on them, they've already wriggled out of your hand's grasp and they're heading towards a hallway behind you that you hadn't noticed. Could lead somewhere important, you decide.

You do end up, following their lead as to not waste your batteries, in a room that you suppose was meant for laundry. A chute on the wall has a corpse compressed on the side, but when you look closely, he has a key. You might need that.

Like everything else in this place, the chute is inactive. You check the panel beside it, noting that you need three fuses in order to get it up and running. You already can't weave your fingers between the cage blocking you from the key, so it looks like you're just going to have to do things the hard way. Like always.

You turn to Chara, who's watching you curiously. "Well?" they ask.

"We're going to have to split up," you tell them.

You notice their expression deflate uncharacteristically, and you know they must be recalling the scenario in the basement. But you stop them.

"We need three fuses," you inform, holding up your pitiful three of of four fingers on one hand to emphasize. "We only need to find one each, we come back and find the other together. Sounds better?"

You know it'd be more logical for one to get just one more fuse more than the other, but the distressed gaze Chara is giving you has you willing to compromise the plan. It _is_ technically your fault that they're so touchy about being left alone anymore.

The negotiation seems to be agreeable, as Chara nods with a bit more relief that has their shoulders sagging. "Much better," they reply. "We meet back here?"

"Yep."

"Good."

You both walk to the end of the hallway just outside the room, and it parts into two ways. Chara gives you a wave and a perky smile. "See ya!"

Before you register, they're already slipping through the hallway, as quick as a sly little fox. Then they disappear so where even your infrared can't see them. You don't have to worry about them, you decide. If you can't see them, then no Variant alive would touch them. You still wonder in awe of how they escaped the basement unscathed.

You remember not too long back, before Father Martin gave you the useless advice of reaching the upper floors, how you'd found a broken elevator housing a dead man inside, barricaded with food and supplies. You'd reported grimly in your notes how he tried to lock himself away where no one could reach him, and it didn't work. Before you reflected, though, Chara was already exhibiting enough discomfort to constantly be pulling at your arm until you decided to let the dead Variant rest.

Chara isn't safe from harm's way, you know that. Their shoulder burn further proves your hypothesis. But you can turn away and focus on yourself for now.

You turn into a room occupied by a Variant, but he seems tame enough to approach. He's hunched over a circle of candles, enlightening something in the middle that's too dim to truly see. All you notice is blood inscriptions are everywhere; ' _Pray for revelation_ ', one tells you. And god, you've never prayed harder in your life.

There's a fuse on the drawer next to the sacrificial gathering, and since the patient doesn't seem bothered by your appearance, you take it. When you snatch the fuse, he begins to wail so suddenly that you find yourself sprinting for the door without looking back.

" _No more!_ " he screeches after you, voice so broken that you find yourself aching for him. You don't know the what's, where's, or how's of his circumstance. But you couldn't agree with him more.

When you go back to plug in your fuse into the chute, you catch eye of an area to your left that you didn't notice before. Maybe it will hold the missing piece, or maybe it will just beg more questions. Either way, you're drawn to it.

The area is burnt and decrepit enough for you to still smell cinders along the walls, with the faint stench of blood that you've grown accustomed to. It's a long hallway with bits of broken wood and doors everywhere, enough for you to consider heading back, but as you turn a corner a sign brightened by candles greets you on a drawer.

' _Drive in the nails,_ 'it says.

You must be getting close.

Spots of candlelight guide you along a dark corridor so you don't have to waste infrared. It's hard exactly to interpret the point of all this and how exactly it would appease a Walrider to set candles every two feet. But you're not complaining.

Eventually you reach a chimney that looks like it's interpreting some cross or another religious sacrifice area. But it's the fuse on the table next to you that takes the cake for your attention. You know you promised Chara that you'd both find the last fuse together, but it's right there in front of you. One less trip you don't have to take.

You can't say you care anymore about Father Martin and his disciples of insanity. If they want to worship a demon that sucks blood out of their nipples while they sleep, well, then that's fine with you. So long as the static can stop ringing in your ears.

It's hard to be alone, even more so than usual. Silence equals thinking, and it's hard to think straight with a mutilated figure watches you as you blink, smothered in black and doused with unrecognizable numbers and symbols that are tattooed onto your eyelids. You don't understand it; if this is what patients see after encountering the Walrider, no wonder they went mad.

You're walking back, passing the flickering candles that dance along the dark walls, when you hear it. It's a high-pitched, hysterical scream. And it belongs to a child.

You run.

The screaming won't stop. You're trampling over objects tossed on the floor, but you don't care. You have to find them, wherever they are.

" _Chara!_ " you scream. There's no response but a garbled screech that's filled with so much horror that you don't think you've ever run faster in your life. Not with Walker, not with any of these Variants. Your own life isn't even the one at stake.

The wailing begins to become detached from itself, like they're being trampled or cut off violently. You don't even attempt to think about it as you turn sharply into a corner and barrel into the room that Chara disappeared in.

There, you see them. They're being held in a death lock by a Variant with one hand gripped at their throat. He's thrashing them against the wall with so much force that it leaves dents, and Chara's mouth is wide with a muted scream that they can no longer force out of their lungs.

You don't even think about what happens next. This wave of primal rage seethes into your aching bones and you race forward, grabbing the Variant abruptly by the collar and tearing him away from the kid. He lets go of them immediately and you hear them crash to the ground, but you're busy with slamming him against the wall.

And you do it again. And again. And again. The buzzing is wailing a horrific chorus into your pulse that gives adrenaline to every time you push his body into the asylum walls. It thunders through your brain as you grit your teeth, and you may be screaming right back at him for all you know. His eyes are wide with terror at your fury before they become more glazed with every time you bash his head.

And then you stop. You let him fall to the floor; his body is limp with death. You won.

The patchy gasps coming from behind you grab your attention. The buzzing fades into panic.

"Kid!" You jump down next to them frantically as Chara's body heaves fiercely with lack of air. They're shriveling on the floor into a fetal position.

"Breathe. Just breathe. Just breathe. It's okay." You don't know what to do. Every inch of you is begging you to have foreknowledge of how to deal with someone suffocating. You end up wrapping your arm around their stomach and pulling them closer to your lap. You don't dare to touch anywhere near their neck in fear of disrupting their breathing process.

Chara takes huge gulps of air as they begin to shiver with spasms so great that their tiny body can't keep still. You keep encouraging them softly to take deep breaths and every other piece of advice that's so unnecessary you could punch yourself. But they're so, so small. And they're breathing so hard and the intensity of their gasps has their throat sounding close to scratching up.

And then the kid starts crying.

You don't recognize it at first among the harsh breaths they're taking, but then they begin to sniffle before it erupts into a sudden wail. Tears begin to leak from their eyes and stain your jeans. It doesn't help with getting oxygen in them, but they don't seem to care.

You don't work with kids for a reason; because they're clingy little things that require attention. Kids need someone who can wipe their tears and bandage cuts and make sure they feel safe. You've never been like that with anyone.

But it's _achingly_ hard to see Chara in pain. Your heart feels like it's being shattered into tiny, useless shards. You can't piece anything together with what you have.

Your solution is, as their body is still convulsing with agony, to pull them into your chest and lap as best as possible and try to cradle them as they're splayed on the floor. They don't even seem to feel your arms wrapping tightly around them or your useless whispers of comfort. But you can't just _sit_ there and watch them suffer. As you tend to do.

Chara begins to slowly shrink into your lap, most likely from exhaustion, as the last sobs begin to dissipate into sniffs. They've lost their voice and refuse to waste it on any more tears.

Then they speak, hoarsely so you have to lean down to hear them. "I didn't catch that," you murmur to them.

Chara speaks again. "He had the fuse," they whisper, and they enter another frenzy of horrible coughing. They lean out of your lap to hack up fluids left over in their stomach before they fall back, shaking.

"Oh my god..." You press their tiny little body to yours. They're too small. _Why are they so small?_ "Oh my god. Oh my god. I'm so sorry."

Their body shivers with effort of crying again, but it's hopeless. They end up working on sucking oxygen back into their weak lungs.

"I thought....I could..." You stop them by bringing their head to the crook of your neck and embracing them tightly.

"Don't do that again," you whisper, and you try to sound harsh but you can't. " _Please_ don't try that again. Oh my god."

Chara takes steadier breaths that begin to mollify you, but you still don't attempt to inspect their throat. There would most likely be a bruise, if you were to look in a brighter atmosphere.

They try again. "I don't want to die," they sniffle, faltering. "I thought I did. But I don't now."

You grip them firmly. "Don't die," you beg. "Don't you _dare_ die."

"I won't," they sigh. Their voice is gone, leaving in its place a shivering child derived of any source of courage they may have carried. "I promise."

They can't die. Chara _shouldn't_ die. If anything, if one of you were to die, it would be yourself. Leaving them behind to rot in an asylum, particularly where patients may not be favorable with their corpse, is not ever going to happen on your watch.

"I'm so sorry," you repeat. You take to stroking their back with one free hand and feeling their bones still shaking with effort to live. You realize now that you've been slightly rocking them. "No more splitting up. I swear."

Chara doesn't speak, and for a blind moment you believe that they're breathing their last, and your heart beats faster. But then you feel them turning their head rather painfully over to the dead Variant you'd forgotten about.

"You killed him," they murmur, and there's a hint of caution, perhaps fright, in an undertone.

You'd forgotten about him. In the heat of the moment, all that mattered was keeping Chara safe and making sure that what the Variant did in suffocating them never happened again. Instinct flew into overdrive and all you remember from killing him is buzzing.

There's a swift moment of sympathy, guilt even. You murdered a patient and you didn't even know his name. He could have been forced into this place unwillingly, with no one to save him but his own strength.

But you remember that he'd almost killed Chara and your heart hardens.

"He's not going to hurt you again," you promise them, trying to draw their eye away from the corpse. They give you a glazed, tired look that if you look closely, you can spot something brighter.

"Good..." And then they fall limp into your arms. Their sharp breathing assures you that they're okay, and you stay like that for a while. You ignore any looming threat just outside that door, and your whole world is compressed into that room, where you hold an injured child like there's no tomorrow. Maybe if you pretend hard enough, you can believe that you both are safe, and there's nothing outside or inside of anything that can hurt you.

It takes a while of just rocking them, but eventually Chara begins to practice development in getting off your lap. Despite, you both are aware of the task at hand. Father Martin will be waiting.

Chara trembles as you help them up, with them leaning heavily on you so that you think they're going to fall forward. In the dim lighting resources provided in this room, you can see something dark and splotchy forming along Chara's throat and neckline, silhouetted in shapes of angry hands on their throat. The buzzing in your ears hum for attention.

Chara coughs again, their sides doubling over as saliva pours from their mouth. With your shirt sleeve, you assist in cleaning up the ends of their mouth from the drool as they mumble a small, "Sorry."

"You're fine," you reassure them, and they hobble closer to your side.

As you make way to leave the room, directing Chara on footing, you spot something shiny near the corpse. It's golden and shaped so that it strikes you as familiar. The fuse.

Your jaw clenches with a dull anger. So _that's_ what Chara almost died for.

After assisting them so that they can at least stand without your guidance, you walk over and snatch the fuse from the man's pocket. You almost think about spitting on his corpse. But you don't.

Chara waits for you, and you push them forward, back to the laundry chute.

-

In proper lighting, the wound is just as bad as you thought. It's a grotesque, dark red that stretches all around their throat. The fact that it's so close to their shoulder burn is most likely not helping soothe their pain.

Chara says nothing about it as they limp along, eyes glossy and face red from crying. They look like a zombie in how they seem to float alongside you with a weary sullenness.

You click the fuses in the box, but you recall attaining them with a hollow, foreign victory.

When you punch the button to activate, the cage doors open and for a brief moment of joy you think you can reach in and nab the key from the corpse. But the body plummets to a floor below instead, before you have the chance.

You mutter an unpleasant curse under your breath, but when you turn back to Chara, you find yourself becoming more gentle.

"Let's head back downstairs to get the key," you say. "Are you going to be alright?"

They don't protest, or say anything, really. It's almost like they didn't listen to anything you'd said. So you rub their back as you sweep them to your side, as though to shelter them. You notice Chara opening and closing their mouth, but nothing except a noise close to a whisper escapes them.

"I'm scared," they mouth to you.

They have every right to be scared, after what happened. You attempt to squeeze them tighter in a gesture of comfort, but the burn and the bruise that attain your touch cause Chara to visibly cringe, so you release your grip.

You could attempt to feed them a big lie and say that there's nothing to be afraid of, like when you were little and your mother reassured you of the monsters under your bed. But these monsters are real, and they bite and kill; your words would cause nothing more than a painful laugh.

So you do what you do best, and say nothing. You were never one with comforting words; people never came to you for reassurance for a reason.

You head back downstairs wordlessly. You ponder on what good it would do to tell them that you're scared too.

-

Usually, if you had to jump over a large gap, there would be a mutual sort of understanding that you went first and then Chara would jump over, and that would be it. You don't deny that the kid is pretty strong; whether or not that's caused from pure experience or just the effects of the Engine kicking in somewhere in their body is unclear.

This time, when you approach a vast hole that used to hold a stairway, it's different. You jump over with a strong running start that has you scrambling upward with throbbing muscles, but you make it. The path ahead is illuminated by candlelight, so you must be getting close.

You wait for Chara to jump, but they don't. That's when you pipe up. "What's wrong?"

They seem to have shut down entirely, looking at the floor with a slumped position.

"I'll catch you," you promise.

"I know you will," Chara replies, and you're surprised to hear their voice again. It's still horribly scratchy, but at least it means that their throat isn't terribly bad. At least, not as bad as it _could_ be. Their voice could be completely gone.

After a moment of self-reassurance, Chara backs away before sprinting at the gap. They leap and you race to extend your arms and catch their hands just as they begin to plummet back to the earth. You grip them tightly and pull them up with ease; they're extremely light, anyway.

"Thank you," Chara pants, and they give you a friendly bump on your chest with their head while they take a moment to rest.

You've begun to treat them like they're fragile, like they could break at any second. But you can't help it; their wheezing from just a small section of running has you worried.

There better be not any more places you need to jump, you think bitterly, as Chara slowly gets back to their feet.

Up ahead, there's another note written on the walls in red. _'Follow the blood.'_

You have no choice but to do as it says.

-

The next jump is much more dangerous than the last. You're shuffling along a thin ledge coated with blood, which you're certain makes the wood below you slippery. You just saw a man sauntering below you, and you really don't want to fail in making this jump to find out what he's doing down there.

You jump again, and cry out as your chest brutally hits the wood. But you quickly recover and hoist yourself up, broken ribs and all. With that show you'd just given on making a troublesome jump, now you have to encourage Chara to do the same.

They're glued to the wall with a wide set of eyes pinned on you. They almost look like they're shaking.

But you marvel at the next minute where they hop over the you just like the last one, but with more ease in getting themselves back up.

Chara gives you a languid smile that's meant to be teasing. "If you can do it, then so can I," they wheeze.

You almost feel this odd sense of pride at their words, but you shove it back down, as there's no use for it. It's not like Chara's actually _your_ child. But you still give a returning smile at their words.

Not even that far ahead into the next room do you hear the faint whispers of the Walrider. He's in the room, you can see the spots blurring your night vision and the ghostly figure that transcends through the walls. Not even a moment after you spot him trailing along the room do the floors beneath you crumble and you both have a split moment of panic before you land fairly gracefully onto a similar-looking area below. Your breath is still glutted down your throat, so beginning to breathe again is an effort.

You hear Chara speak up. "Count to four," they whisper hoarsely.

They must have heard your breathing.

You do as instructed. Counting in your head one, two, three, four, then letting out a breath in one, two, three, four. The buzzing chirps loudly on one, two, three, four and disbands into background noise at one, two, three, four.

You're in control again. But the noises in your head won't stop; it just means that for now, you have more control over it.

Besides, Chara is still recovering. You can't quit on them now, and leave them alone in a fit of nonsensical panic.

You both stagger around holes in the floor and climb atop piled bedframes in order to navigate this place. All the lights are done and it looks like the rooms were all hit by individual tornados; the way that all the furniture is tossed and turned every which way along the ends of the areas.

Chara is subdued in a silence that you'd at first associate with the trauma of the suffocation episode, but you begin to recognize their similar lockdown expression to the one back in the Medical Ward. A face plastered with dark memories as they scan the beds like they picture something there, and how they seem to stray away from you in order to observe a certain area like it takes them on a trip to memory lane.

Before you can outright ask, Chara is the one who answers your question. "I was kept here," they croak, looking rightfully uneasy on the subject.

They gesture to everything that this area represents. They're so lost in a different time as they saunter through the misplaced beds and materials. "The doctors would always be so...distinctive from the rest of us, rather purposely. They always reminded us that we were here because no one wanted us. Sometimes they'd pit us against each other for sport. Gaslighted our interpretations of others and the world. They acted like they were forcing us to go mad. Because that was honestly their job."

When Chara remembers that they have an audience, they start back into a small fit of horrible coughing. Their tiny sermon must have cost a lot of breath. "There were some nice people, though," they assure you weakly. "So it wasn't always so terrible."

You stare at them, at their posture, and wonder how they're standing so calmly in a room that once held suppressed terror and judgement upon all the wrong people.

"How the hell are you still alive," you murmur to them, and Chara seems mellow at your response.

They don't ask for clarification, instead giving the smallest of shrugs that is surely hurting their shoulders.

"I believe there is such thing as dumb luck," is all they say about it. And then they shut up and stare back at the beds.

It's a document lying on a bed that diverts your attention. You nab it and search the content. It's a diary excerpt, printed out from a patient back around the 50's, and you recognize the writer— Shirley Pierce—as the echo of another document you picked up not too long ago.

She expresses distress, but submission to the abusers that cause her turmoil. The doctors are telling her the same thing Chara just told you: that it's all the patient's fault. The cuts Pierce laments about are from an unknown source— possibly about the hypnotic episode you'd read up on, back in the administration block—yet the doctors force her to believe otherwise.

You frown. No wonder these people had gone mad.

When you stuff away the document, you turn back to Chara with your infrared and you notice something. They're scratching their covered arms. Not for the sake of itching, it seems like, but for the pure sake of doing it. Their back is turned to you, but they angrily scrape at their clothed flesh with a forceful hand that has you snapping their attention away instantly.

"Kid?" you call, and Chara turns back around and stuffs away any sign of their previous actions. If you look closely, you can see growing shame in their eyes; you wonder if they know that you saw them.

You make strides towards an exit with a bloody arrow pointing to it. "Let's head this way."

Chara nods. "Okay," they whisper, and they follow you a good distance behind.

You break off as you're heading towards the doorway with a sharp U-turn that goes without question by Chara. There's something luring you into another hallway, and the thick splotches of black leads you towards a layer of glass, spotted with small bursts of light provided by candles.

You follow it without question. The static in your brain begs for whatever is beyond the swirling windows.

Candles ooze along the floor, and a thin cross dripping with blood near the wall greets you as you walk in. One furious word rises amongst the pool of blood below it, scrawled ruthlessly across the wall.

_'LIES.'_

You don't understand, so you record it for safekeeping.

 _I recognize the handwriting,_ you admit. _Father Martin killed a man here. Are the 'LIES' he's talking about all the files from these boxes? The facts? The records? They look like government agency material, at least thirty years old, probably older._

You pause, your pencil wavering on the notebook paper with anticipation. _I start thinking MKULTRA, CIA. Mind Control,_ you continue. _The buzzing won't stop._

And it doesn't. Not even as you acknowledge its existence does the humming in your brain take a moment to breathe. Bringing it to front-end center in your train of thought only has it wringing into an awful scream.

You look over to Chara, almost for help or more advice on how to make it go away. But they're busy leaning against the doorframe, waiting for you to finish up with almost an unpleasant expression that you don't decide to press.

In the light, their sleeves are rolled up slightly— most likely from the previous scratching incident—but they pull it down quickly as they don't waste a moment in spinning around and heading back to where you were going to go down the foyer. But you already saw them.

You saw all the angry ribbons sliced along their wrist and upward. 

But you say nothing.

-

The problem with the Twins, you decide, is not their lack of modesty. It's that they're so calm and collected while they're trying to find you and kill you that is beginning to greatly unnerve you.

Even as you pull Chara this way and that, sprinting and hiding around, they make no other move in returning the gesture and chasing you. At least they're not like Walker, you decide. But they're bad nonetheless. Their apathy in tearing out your liver and tongue is not appreciated at this moment.

It takes a while for you to swerve around them and their large machetes that they possess. Since the arrows are begging for you to enter the closed doors, and since the Twins seems to enjoy residing in that room, you think you can say with confidence that the odds aren't stacked in your favor.

You'd be a bit more scared if you weren't terrified to the point that adrenaline is surging through your veins, and the buzzing is eating that up. You just want to get this over with now.

"Be careful," you whisper to Chara.

"Well thank god one of us is thinking ahead," they reply rather sarcastically, and you're about to make a sharp remark before you notice how burnished their eyes are in the dark. They're just as scared as you.

When you open the door, all you have on your mind is to just bolt it. The Twins are most likely circling up behind you, so that they could attack at any given moment. But their sauntering pace is easing enough so that you just run forward, into the darkness, like you haven't got a care in the world.

The coast seems clear, so you head into another area and you're rested with even more deteriorated woodwork. It's unfortunate that you have to scavenge the safe bits of the floor, so that you don't end up falling a fair distance down to the bottom below, where you can promise at least a sprained ankle.

You and Chara are both better at shuffling along, from your previous practices, and since Chara doesn't have to jump a long way you have no trouble in coaxing them to hop around the floorboards. Your main concern is hoping that somehow you don't end up getting a nasty splinter. But at least the Twins are behind you.

You reach a point where you have to jump a fair distance, like before, in order to get to your destination just in front of you. You decide to let Chara go first, as they're already seeming valiant enough to perform a jump like that again.

Before you can even open your mouth and suggest your idea, Chara runs ahead of you and hops over the large gap with enough ease to assuage your own worries. They end up doubling over with choppy pants of breath, but overall they seem fine.

You jump forward to join them.

When you hit the wood, something begins to happen. You hear a thundering crack in your ears, and your heart twists at feeling yourself slowly plummeting downward.

Chara's eyes widen as they back away, to safer ground not too far ahead. "Miles! The floor!"

You don't need to be told twice. You're scrambling upward as fast as possible, feeling quite like a flailing fish in the process, but your dread begins to consume your bravery as you notice your camera toppling downward, just before Chara can reach out and grab it for you. It must have somehow fallen out of your hold while you were jumping.

Seeing it roll away and plummet to the floor below has something in your brain shutting down with alarm. That camera is all you had to show for your adventures, and for your crippling sanity. If it was irretrievable now, so help you god—

The door opens close to where the camcorder is below you, and you freeze. Some stupid part of you believes he's going to take the camera for himself. Erase everything it ever stood for. You're paralyzed with your anxiety at the loss of something that you considered almost unreasonably important to you.

Chara's rasp, panicked voice snaps you from your thoughts. " _Miles!_ "

The wood you're holding onto collapses beneath you, and you begin to hurl yourself forward, ignoring the falling floor below you and instead focusing on Chara's outstretched hand. You only need to reach them; don't worry about the crumpling earth beneath you.

When you reach them, you clasp onto their hands to tightly that it emits a pained sound from Chara, but they pull you forward with such strength in their tiny body that you both end up falling to the floor. Looking back on where the floor was falling, it wasn't too much of the floorboards that were truly in danger of collapsing like that. But who were you to have known that in the heat of panic?

It doesn't process correctly for another hot second that your camcorder is gone. When you find your hand instinctively reaching for your face in order to get a better view of the infrared, it sinks in.

You've never known the phrase "you don't know what you have until it's gone", truly, until now. It's like a part of you is missing, and the fear that someone else will grab hold of all your stories and all your findings has you frozen on the spot and looking helplessly down at where your camera is trapped in dismay. The man at the door didn't get it, thank god. But still, you need it.

"I'm sorry," Chara says unhappily. "I tried to reach it."

You regain a bit more in common sense. At the end of the day, it really is just an object.

"You did the right thing," you tell them encouragingly, ignoring your own anxiety over the loss. "You stayed put."

"I know but," they look at you pitifully, "don't you need it?"

You nod. "I do," you admit. "But we can go down there and get it. It's not a lost cause."

Chara doesn't seem pleased that you seem so confident on your words, but they sigh anyway. "Okay," they breathe. "Let's get your camcorder."

When you turn to put your words to action, the problem that you were hoping wouldn't come into play officially hits you. Unlike Chara, you can't see in the dark.

But then you feel Chara reach down to grab your hand, and they take the lead. "I know you need your night vision," they begin, voicing your thoughts. "So never fear, your substitute camera is here!"

It's almost a second of disappointment, at having your life in the hands of a small child that can see in the dark. You're like a blind, helpless old man in need of service. But you have to swallow your pride here, and you definitely don't want to run into anybody when you can't see in front of your nose at the moment.

So you give them an approving nod, and you find yourself becoming ever so grateful that in this moment, you're not alone. You don't have to do this by yourself. "Thank you," you murmur.

They smile. "No problem. Just follow my lead."

"Like I have a choice."

They give a small chuckle at that before you head left, into a dark, dark corridor that only activates your sudden fears of how this mission is going to work. It's Chara's telecasting poise that has you allowing them to fully take the reigns.

You look down at your broken, wounded hands that are missing fingers. Underneath your hold, Chara has tiny little cuts all along their wrist that are wrapped in the black sleeves they're wearing. Your mind drifts along to their bandaged shoulder concealing an angry flame, and the splotches of pink and purple lacing their neck.

You begin to wonder, now, about the wounds that Chara won't tell you about.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alt: The proverb of the day is "Curiosity killed the cat" and you should have learned that a long time ago mister Upshur

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for those with pyrophobia and who greatly dislike broken joints. Also a small panic attack and more cognitive dissociation on Miles's behalf.

It's not as dark as you'd previously suspected. There are a couple of lights still scattered here and there that allow you to stride alongside Chara with a bit more confidence. But it's still helpful where, in areas you can't properly find your footing, that you have someone instructing you to "watch your step" or "make a right over here"

Besides, there's a tiny bit of you that's happy that you're allowing Chara to feel like they're contributing to something in a part of this journey. You know that they don't feel that great about themselves, and you know that it's not a conflict that can be solved by them having enhanced vision while you don't. But still, you want them to feel like there's someone that's glad that they exist.

No one seems to be coming after you at the moment, even if every now and then you hear thundering footsteps coming from a place you can't distinguish. Chara seems unfazed by the noises, and that's what keeps you fairly grounded as you walk around, completely in the dark (you think they would appreciate that pun).

A Variant attacks you abruptly as you turn a corner, screaming and pushing you in a fit of sudden hysteria that has you channeling a sudden yell in surprise. Even Chara ducks behind you in alarm as he runs past you.

It seemed like he only did that to scare you. Or maybe you just surprised him, you don't know.

Chara regains themselves with a quick shake. "I didn't see him," they apologize, looking rather ashamed. You see no need for them to be; it's not like the Variant even tried anything.

You make quick assessments on their condition in the darkness. Chara is incapable of thinking much about the wounds they carry, and you know that. So now it's your job to make sure that everything is in its proper place before you continue.

There's a man bound in shackles near an open window, but you pay no mind to him. He seems fairly compliant so that he leaves you alone, even when you approach him. Outside, the sky is a dark grey, and the pattering of raindrops against the glass notifies you that it's still storming outside. You miss the outdoors now, where at least you could get a whiff of fresh air.

The echoing of something slamming to the floor has you snapping your head wildly around, Chara assures you, "No one here. We're almost there."

You follow them to a darkened area, and shrouded in broken floorboards, you spot it. Your camcorder.

Releasing Chara's hand, you relish in grabbing the camera and immediately you begin to check the batteries, the vision, everything. It's still in working condition; you could cry right now.

You switch the infrared back on with a satisfying click. A spot on your vision is cracked from the fall, but it's not enough so that it completely destroys the footage. You'll take what you can get.

"We're alright," you inform Chara, referring to the camcorder's state.

Chara doesn't seem to be listening, and you turn to look at their expression. They seem uneasily pointing at something with widened eyes. "Um, Miles?"

You face where they're looking at and find them pointing to some Variants, advancing towards you from not too far away in the room.

"Everybody! Everybody!" One screeches as he makes his way towards you. You grab Chara's hand again and run.

You swerve around the corners with much more ease than before. You recall the similar walking patterns as you backtrack your way to where you'd jumped down to this level, so it's not too terribly difficult. Both of you are speeding through the dark hallways and eventually you find your way back up top. The threat is gone.

When you place your camera back on to navigate the abandoned bathroom, you remember that when you'd first activated your recorder back downstairs, before the man started chasing you, that there was a split second of red and some sort of screaming that emitted from the camcorder, and not from your brain. It was odd, but you try not to think much of it. Maybe your mind is just playing more tricks on you.

When you soothe your thoughts, it happens again. The infrared screeches with a red static that interrupts your eyesight, and you pull away with a squint of your eyes. The sight makes you unnecessarily dizzy.

"Something wrong?" Chara perks up behind you.

You shake your head, and the static glues itself to your eyelids with a mechanical whir. "The camera is just acting weird, is all."

They don't seem to believe you, but they let it rest. "Well, it did fall from a good height. I'm surprised it's actually working."

"It's a good model," you reply, and Chara gives an amused hum.

The static isn't going away in your camera, and you refuse to even think about turning it off and on again. There's too much to lose in doing that.

It sounds like jammed radiowaves in your ears, but the problem is that Chara doesn't seem to hear them. 

Something is wrong.

-

A Variant at the end of a bright hallway greets you. He doesn't seem violent, looking at you with an inquiring expression. Like he's been lectured to leave you be.

"Only one way out," he hisses, but he stands still. "Only one way."

Chara is trailing behind you, clinging to your back to avoid the patient. They've gone past the point of taking their chances anymore, you suspect. Their bruised neck protrudes even more so in the ugly lighting.

The Variant seems to be directing you towards another area. A longer hallway, illuminated by the grey windows exposing the outside world. Stacks of file cabinets and overturned tables block your clear path, but you're able to maneuver around them efficiently.

Behind you, the Variant in the distance asks, "How do you know you're not a patient?"

You remember being asked that before, back in the courtyard. The repetition in this place is killing you, causing you to even more dance along the fine line of insanity.

The possibility of you belonging here, among experimented mental patients, is becoming favorable.

You squeeze through a tight space between some files, recalling when so long ago, you'd been torn from your sanctuary and thrown out of a window, trapping you in here. Chara navigates the squeeze with more ease because of their tiny frame, but you notice that their expression is tight with anxiety at being pressed in a small space. Possibly trauma from being nearly strangled to death.

"Where are we?" they ask you.

You look around. The corridor, bright and almost friendly, reminds you of when you first climbed into this asylum. You'd gone through several offices to collect a few belongings, and there were some break rooms that looked similar to this.

"Administration Block," you decide. "Which means we're almost there."

"Finally," Chara sighs. You couldn't agree more.

The hallway is full of closed doors, but to your surprise they all seem to be unlocked and accessible. Good thing, too, because the moment you head towards the light at the end of the tunnel, you spot Walker's silhouette again.

By now, you're not scared anymore. It's becoming more of an unneeded hassle for him to be around. And besides, you have whatever is causing your camera to go haywire to place your worries upon.

You and Chara run into a small office space. Well, not exactly small. There are some comfy couches to lounge around in, if you had the time. Whoever worked in here must have had a pretty big promotion recently.

"Who is that?" you hear Walker growl from right outside. Luckily, neither of you are dumb enough to answer.

When you assume that the coast is clear, you slowly creep back to the door. He's bound to not be just waiting outside, right? He doesn't even know where you are.

You theory is proven false when he is, indeed, right outside the door.

You have only the tiniest millisecond to escape his hands clawing at the air, trying to catch you. With Chara slipping easily through his grasp, you both head straight for another room with the same understanding that you absolutely without a doubt can't get caught now.

His harsh growling from behind trails a bit, so that means you're outrunning him. You both sprint into a smaller room, and slam the door shut behind you. At least it'll buy you some time.

"Hey!" Chara catches your attention and they point to an open vent, reachable by climbing atop a table. "Let's head up here!"

Outside, Walker is beginning to pound on the door. "I don't see why not."

Chara is able to climb up first, due to the table's assistance in helping them reach it better. Your heart is beginning to flip just a bit fast with every time you hear Walker bang on the door. Sooner or later, he's bound to break in.

The only thing that soothes your panic is when you're finally pulled inside the vent shaft, with Chara's help. You both shimmy quickly away from the vent's opening just as Walker breaks through. You hear him give a muttered curse as you depart.

Up ahead, you spot a figure from far away, squished into a rather uncomfortable position. It seems wise to divert onto another path, and there's one to your right, so you head there.

The promise of another way out is disproven immediately when you see that you've stumbled across a small, locked room with scattered papers littering the floor. There was some sort of skirmish here.

"Why are we over here?" Chara whispers, seeming exasperated at your pointless searching.

"Hold on," you notion, as you spot another document lying on one of the desks. "Stay up here."

"Sure thing."

You hop down to snatch the file and skewer through the details. A letter about Billy's dreams.

You keep hearing that name over and over in this place. Billy Hope. He's some sort of mutual presence in this place, somehow tied into whatever went wrong here. In fact, he was the first person you'd encountered when you came here. You remember that his patient file was the first one you'd taken.

He's associated with the Walrider; or at least he acknowledges his existence with some sort of connection that you haven't seen the other Variants have. From the file, Billy seems to have lucid dreams of defeating the Walrider with some other demon. Something about blood and butterflies.

You stuff the letter away. Just reading that made you feel like your grip of sanity was slipping.

When you approach the vent where Chara is eyeing you, you stop. "Do you know anybody by the name of Billy?"

They frown and give you a quizzical look. "Billy?"

"Billy Hope," you clarify.

A spark of recognition across Chara's face has you interested. "I've heard of him," they answer. "Not much, though. All I know is the doctors really wanted him alive for some reason."

If the doctors were clingy with Billy in making sure he wasn't one of the thousands to die by Murkoff's hand, then maybe there is something wrong.

"Why'd you ask?" Chara waits for you as you hop back into the vent with them.

You shrug, adjusting yourself to the tightness of the shaft. "I was curious."

They give a small smile. "Curiosity killed the cat, you know."

You don't answer in favor of turning back around to where the body of the man is. It looks like that's where you need to be headed after all.

When you get closer, you see that his neck is snapped at such a horrid angle that you scurry in front of Chara to block their vision.

They've already spotted the corpse, and their facial expression is curled with disgust. But wordlessly, they let you forward to push the corpse back down to the floor below. He's blocking your path.

The setting is familiar, from outside the shaft. You realize with a sudden wave of relief that you're back where you'd first jumped down near the library. You've come full circle.

"I know where we are," you inform Chara.

"So do I," they nod, but their eyes are almost sagging with the sense of ease that comes from you both knowing that you're so, so close.

You jump down, being mindful to not slip and fall due to a puddle of blood. It seems dry enough now so that you allow Chara to follow your footsteps, and they join you with a small grunt of pain as their ankles hit the floor.

The library is right beside you, and for a split second you think that you really are back to where you'd started. Back to where you first encountered the bodies and decapitated heads and a man warning you to get out as fast as possible. You can't help but wonder what he'd have to say about you surviving all of this thus far.

But when you open the door, all you see is what appears to be an abandoned conference room. You walk in, searching for perhaps another file, but so far nothing but a battery.

Chara has taken an immense interest in all the books stacked along the shelves. They scavenge the walls with such an excited gleam in their eyes that you decide to stick around for a bit longer. They're not hurting anybody.

While Chara flips through a book they'd randomly grabbed, your patience pays off when you come across another document on a table. You nab it and read it, as always.

Blah blah Wernicke. Blah blah Walrider. Something about sprirtual realms. This is just clarifying what you'd assumed was correct before. Wernicke really was idiotic enough to try and summon some otherworldly force for an unknown reason.

With a grimace, you close the file just as you see Chara come up to you with a joyous grin. "Look!"

You look down to see what they have in their hands. It's a small book, entitled "Little House On The Prairie". With a curious glance, you look back up at them, waiting for an answer.

"They have actual books!" Chara chirps, their voice still borderline raspy. "One of my doctors would always burrow these for me!"

You don't understand the deep meaning behind Chara's passion of discovering that Murkoff might have sensible books that don't plead insanity. But they seem so happy and energized, just as a kid their age should be. You don't want to take this moment away from them.

You ask, "Do you like that book?"

Chara nods, beaming. "It was one of my favorites."

With a moment of muted affection, you suggest, "Would you like to take it?"

Their eyes widen a smidge, like they're surprised that burrowing a book was even an option on the table. "Can I?" they ask, rather sheepishly.

You give a shrug. "I really doubt that anyone would care at this point."

Then you outstretch your hand. "Here, I'll put it in my bag so you don't have to carry it."

Chara looks jubilant at this point; you're surprised they're not bouncing on their toes. With a grin that shows their teeth, they hand it to you and you place it away with the journal and files, as promised.

"Thank you!" they sing, voice still low because of the sound that carries through the room. But their joy is already radiating off their skin and you end up reaching out to ruffle their hair.

"Alright, calm down," you say, but you're smiling. "It's no big deal. Let's get to where we need to be."

"Where do we need to be?" Chara asks, but their voice is tinged with leftover happiness.

You open the door back out into the lobby. "We'll figure it out eventually."

"Okay," they reply, and then you feel a tiny pair of arms wrapping around your waist and a small head pressing tightly into your back.

You twist your abdomen slightly to fondly smooth out their messy hair.

"You're a good kid, Chara," you murmur. "I don't care what anybody tells you."

-

Someone sprints down the steps and slams into the caged door next to you, blocking him from you. Chara ducks behind your back with a surprised squeak.

"You're him!" The Variant exclaims, seeming relieved. "Yes. I'm supposed to tell you—the key to the house of God is in the theater, behind the light. In the theater, behind the light."

His words are cramming together, like he's reciting a command he heard and he can't get a hold of his words as they slip through his raspy tongue.

You have to see the movie so that's where he left the card," he urges. "Okay?"

Before you respond, Father Martin's voice calls from upstairs and the Variant turns around to hear him.

"Children!" he calls. "I need your help. Where are you?"

"Yes! Coming!" The Variant responds, sounding annoyed. "I'm coming!"

And then he storms back up the steps in a hurry, leaving you with your new objective to retrieve the key in the Recreation Hall.

"He seemed nice," Chara hums.

"He was especially nice in telling us where the key is," you reply briskly.

The Recreation Hall isn't far, only another lobby down. You remember seeing a directional map on the walls guiding you towards it. You go through a small breakroom with a pool table and scurry out before Chara gains interest in it.

From a far distance, it sounds like someone's playing piano.

You assume that it's some disk over the speakers that was left to die out during the riot. But as you near your supposed destination, the playing sounds a bit choppier. It sounds like it's playing live.

You climb up a ladder to another ledge you have to cross, and from down below you're able to pinpoint that the source of the music is coming from not so far away. Whoever is playing sure has a knack for doing so, you think.

Pressed up against the wall with your ringing camera static in tow, you jump down onto a safe object that's able to soften your fall.

When you scurry through the tossed lockers, you find that the piano music is coming from a small door provided with a window. The Variant is tuning the instrument with great care as he dances his fingers along the keys. You're surprised to see what you'd assume to be an insane man taking up such a calming hobby. Perhaps a therapeutic method he'd learned, or maybe a talent he'd gained before administered.

When he realizes he has company, he stops and turns to you. You'd expect annoyance that you interrupted his show, but his face is eerily blank.

When he approaches you in the light, he gives you a long gaze that allows you to see the excruciating details of his sewn mouth. It was as though performing was his only way of getting a voice.

And then he disappears, taking no more interest in you or the abandoned piano.

Chara clicks their tongue in disappointment. "It's a shame he stopped playing," they remark wistfully. "I love the piano."

You turn to them. "Do you play piano?"

They shake their head sadly. "No, but I've always wanted to learn." Then they add, "I can play the violin though."

You look back at the grand instrument, and you find yourself gaining a slight sense of nostalgia. "I can play a few songs on piano," you say.

Then you remember your missing fingers, and something in your heart deflates as you turn down to give a dull glare at the bandaged hands.

"At least, I _could_ ," you mutter.

Chara doesn't seem to carry the same disappointment that you do at your gained disability. "I'm sure you'll become used to it," they say softly. "Then maybe you can teach me."

It sounds like a pleasant time, when all is said and done and you can get out of here and pretend that this night was nothing more than a bad dream.

You nod and turn to them. "Tell you what. I'll teach you piano and you can teach me a bit of violin."

Chara gives a smile that you find doesn't meet their eyes. But it's a smile, nonetheless. "Deal."

You know that it's not going to make anything better, but it's something.

-

The movie comes on with a dramatic noise that's close to thunder, and you jump in automatic surprise. Even Chara gives a small gasp.

You both turn to the screen, not daring to sit down. In bold words, "MORPHOGENIC ENGINE Activation Segment" and some other unimportant dates. The screen you're watching on is cracked with a small puddle of blood crossing the bottom right, so some of the text is slightly distorted.

A man over the speakers apathetically informs the audience, "Exit interview recorded December 27th, 1985 in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Clearance Sierra Alpha. Subject Dr. Rudolf Wernicke, 14866."

Wernicke. Are they going to show you footage from the interview? Curious, you flip on your camera to record the video just as the on-screen countdown goes from five to one.

You'd expected at least people, or some sort of documentary showing perhaps a b-roll of tortured patients as the interview continues. You're surprised— and confused—to see that the screen flicks to black and white with an odd form of images, like a twisted kaleidoscope. In the figures, you see church buildings and open wounds curling into each other like a swarming black butterfly.

It's sickening. But you find yourself oddly drawn to it.

"The films are real," a man croaks, and you recognize the thick accent as German. This must be Dr. Rudolf Wernicke that you're hearing.

"There was no alteration to the footage at all?" The man in the interview asks. "No trickery?"

"None," Wernicke answers simply.

Occasionally you'd spot a cross or something on fire in the video. It's amazing how you're taking the shapes and making some sort of personal sense to it. The buzzing begins to provide some sort of calming soundtrack in your brain, rather than becoming an ambient pest.

"In June of 1943 you recorded three instances of spontaneous bleeding," the interviewer continues. "A half dozen test subjects began to develop brain tumors."

"Yes," Wernicke agrees. "The autopsies revealed that the tumors were pure lead."

"It killed them?"

No answer.

"Can you explain why the results could not be reproduced in the United States?" the interviewer presses.

There are patterns forming now in the footage, like inflamed tapestries that seem to almost call to you. Like you're finding some form of shelter amongst what you can label as madness.

"I have my theories," Wernicke continues, then begins to sound hesitant. "My homeland, in those years. It's impossible to understand the things we felt. What we believed."

The patterns begin to fast forward themselves back to the beginning.

"The overwhelming fear," Wernicke explains, and there's a small hint of the whispers of passion he refers to. "Ecstatic rage, and... English words are insufficient."

He sounds as though Nazism was something that could be justified.

"More than hope. A human mind in that environment is capable of extraordinarily things."

The footage plays again. You didn't notice before that there was a warning at the beginning of the video, a bit hard to interpret because of the crack on the screen. 'All research personnel MUST avert attention.'

You glance to Chara suddenly, afraid that something may have triggered from the Activation Sequence. If it was made to create insanity just from watching a movie, you don't want to accidentally trigger something with them.

Chara turns to your gaze, and you're surprised to see their face is calm and clear. They don't seem affected by any of the patterns flickering across the screen.

Of course, you remember. They're immune to the properties of the Morphogenic Engine.

They turn back to the screen and cross their arms idly, listening to the interview with interest.

"You're saying the experiment needed..." the interviewer asks, sounding confused.

"A proximity to death," Wernicke finishes. "To overwhelming madness. Only a test subject who had witnessed enough horror was capable of activating the engine."

There's an odd reaction you experience at his claim, like being doused in cold water. It's like some piece just clicked in your head, and you're not allowed to have access to the answer you've just discovered.

You refuse to think about it any more; Wernicke is a dead man and his theories and experiments can rot in hell alongside him.

Still, something in the very, very back of your subconscious begins to sing, _He's talking about me, he's talking about me, he's talking about me._

And you argue by saying it can't be you. Sure, tonight has been a nightmare, no doubt about it. But surely there were other contestants around here that was just as capable as activating the engine he's talking about. It _can't_ be you.

The buzzing in your head doesn't seem to think so.

"Do you believe your test subjects achieved something supernatural?"

"No."

"Do you think they _contacted_ something supernatural?"

"Nothing is supernatural," Wernicke argues.

"Then what was it?" The interviewer asks, sounding rather exasperated at the old man's riddles. "You said Project WALRIDER was a gateway. A gateway to what?"

The audio stops. All that's left is the clicking of the film, projecting its show of ornamental fires and insects.

You write, _The man sounds like Dr. Strangelove's anemic brother. It's a twenty-five year old audio recording, an interview with Dr. Wernicke. Los Alamos means governmental work._

 _Wernicke talks about spontaneous bleeding, tumors, psychosomatic reactions in sufficiently disturbed people._ The more you write, the more you realizing you're compressing your jaw angrily as you scribble down information about Wernicke. You add, _Seems to walk a fine line between science and Nazi mysticism._

_"Only a test subject who had witnessed enough horror was capable of activating the engine." The Morphogenic Engine._

You pause to look back up at the sequence, still playing, and you find yourself having to tear your eyes away from the screen with force.

_The Engine. The movie they're projecting. It gets in my head like a song you can't stop humming. I blink and see Rorschach tests that look like swarming insects and infected surgery wounds._

_The patients talk about using the Engine to conjure the Walrider,_ you conclude. _It's the buzzing I hear in my bones._

Chara is the first to break the silence with a heavy sigh. "Nothing," they grumble, and they explain bitterly, "I watched that stupid Activation Segment so long before. I _can't_ go insane."

It was testing your sanity. Maybe that was why your buzzing was strumming at a finer pace than beforehand. Perhaps you were feeding this malicious being that's attached itself to some dark corner of your brain and relishes in the sight of blood and corpses. You've been so used to calling it "immunity" that you haven't thought of calling it "going crazy".

The thought doesn't sit very well with you, so you press with Chara, "So that's what they showed to patients to make them...?"

Chara nods. "It's not usually this dulled down. They strap you to things and force you to hear this awful sizzling noise with it too. Occasional screaming."

You don't know what sort of sick people would ever get satisfaction of tying a small child to a chair and forcing them to watch something that was assigned to make them insane.

When they catch some form of pity that decided to show on your face, their eyes become guarded. "Don't give me that," they snap, but their harsh tone is watery. "I'm here now, aren't I?"

You shake your head. "That's no excuse. You shouldn't have been treated like that."

"I don't care," Chara mutters, and when they see your expression begin to morph into a silent protest they argue, "You treat me okay, right?"

They sound like they really don't know what being treated "okay" means. You ponder how much difference there truly was in their life before admitted into this asylum and afterwards.

You find yourself saying, almost skeptical yourself, "I like to think so."

Then they give a small smile. "You're a nerd," they tease, "but you're pretty alright. Even if you're dumb enough to come here."

You scoff. "Don't worry. I think I've learned my lesson from now on."

"Yeah, don't go into crazy asylums."

The static in your camera has you focusing again on the images that wait behind your eyelids. They're stitched into some part of you now so that you feel like your head is just a walking file stuffed with the horrid decorations of the segment and some screeching that won't stop in the back of your head.

You make your way to what seems to be the exit door of the theater, and just outside you spot a blood trail. After all this time, you're still following the blood.

"That film didn't scare you, right?" Chara asks as they saunter behind you. Their voice is small, almost uncertain at your reply.

You turn back. "Of course not," you lie. It terrified you, because you were enthralled by it.

They give you a frown and a look that plasters the emotion of pure disbelief. Was it something in your voice that gave it away?

You don't have to time to respond— you're not sure you could even reassure them at this point—when you open to a line of lockers and one shuts as you approach it.

Through the gaps along the locker, a terrified man murmurs to you. "You have to find Wernicke," he begs. "Only way."

You'd love to. You have a few words you'd like to say to this Nazi scientist.

When you're far enough away from the hiding man, Chara says, "From my time here, I've learned that there are a lot of bad people in this world. But I don't think you're one of them."

You almost give a bitter chuckle at their words. They don't know a thing about you. "I can't say I'm a good person, kiddo."

Chara gives you a hard stare that's so determined it catches you by surprise.

"I think you are," they say. "And I've never allowed myself to believe that there's anybody good. You haven't given me any reason to think otherwise."

And then they're silent, watching you with an intense gaze that has you uncomfortably turning away. That's a lot to live up to, even with these childlike expectations of you. It's too much to handle, especially when you've never been considerate with children. Or being called a "good person".

-

After getting the entrance door practically slammed into your face, you literally have nowhere else to go. You're glad that as you crouched back down to head back downstairs that the Variant who'd slammed the door was now rushing back down the stairs, leaving one door that was previously locked held agape.

"What was that all about?" Chara wonders aloud; they're crouched right behind you.

You try to shrug from your uncomfortable position beneath the table. "I guess we'll never know."

When you enter the opened door, it's actually a broken balcony over the theater, where the Variant must have shuffled along the ledges in order to head back.

The door he'd slammed was locked now, so you have no other option than to carefully ease your way across the strip of wood. The film is still rolling and projecting a huge beam of light on your infrared.

You eventually scuffle the corners and trap yourself in a one-way situation, where you can either jump onto a fenced balcony with all your might or head back.

The way that Chara is blocking your path back, you decide to surge forward and grab onto the rails as you plummet to the ground. You've grown used to nearly falling to your death by now.

You haul yourself over the railing, and it takes a bit of coaxing to get Chara to do the same, be after a moment's hesitation they mimic your movement and you assist in helping them over the fence.

"I'm tired of jumping," they complain.

"Pick a number."

In the projection room, you don't have to perform much scavenging, since Father Martin kept his promise. You grab the key from the table behind the big projector. Now you just need to head back.

You inform Chara that it's time to leave when you spot them staring intently at the large projector whirring the movie. They seem lost in thought, but they don't seem to be living any sort of traumatic event by the way they solemnly hold their shoulders.

"Kid?" you call softly to get their attention.

They turn and look at you with an odd gaze, almost dreamlike.

"We could get out," they murmur. "We could _actually_ get out of here."

They're right. For so long, freedom was such a distant constant that was purposely kept outside your grasp. Now it's almost done; Father Martin sounds like whatever he's planning is coming to an abrupt close. Through prison blocks and sewer drains and different Wards, you've been scouring through this place with the idea that this was an inescapable hellhole.

But now you can look at Chara and agree with some form of confidence, "We're going to get out."

Their eyes become bright, despite how tired and drained they seem in their idle stance.

"You've said that before, but that's the first time I've actually believed you," they say with a smile.

"First time _I_ believed it too," you reply good-humoredly, and they rush back to your side to lead you out of the doorway.

You're so used to having something so wonderful being swept out beneath you; if you die right before you reach the exit, you don't know what would happen now with all your notes, your hard work and dedication in getting Murkoff filmed to the ground.

You look at Chara, and realize that despite your camcorder's evidence and the notes you've taken, the one thing you can't afford to lose is the tiny Variant immune to the Engine. 

You owe them that much.

-

It's a split second of alarm creeping through the darkness, but eventually you escape the theater with your tongues and livers still intact. The Twins had broken into the area and had temporarily stalked you both, but they were nowhere near as bad as they were in the Female Ward, where Father Martin wasn't breathing constantly down their back on insisting that you be kept alive.

You head back to where the Variant had first instructed you to watch the movie and unlock the door with the key you'd obtained. You pray to every god above that this is the final key you need to scavenge in this place.

A huge bloody arrow directs you up the steps, and you follow. You've got to be close to whatever Father Martin is planning now.

You arrive up the steps and feel Chara tighten their grip on the back of your jacket when they spot a man to your left in a gated doorway, blocking you from him. He takes a moment to monitor your presence, and you back away skeptically, wondering if he's capable of unlocking the door he's standing behind.

It's another second before he calmly turns away and heads towards another guarded area and closes another glass door behind him. Through the hazy vision of the doorway, you watch him walk away.

"I just want to get out," Chara grumbles, and you feel a tiny face poking your ribcage. They're pressed into your side with a huge, defeated groan, and you're surprised that there's not a face mark left behind on your outfit when you eventually push them away.

"And we're almost there," you promise. "Let's see what Father Martin is up to."

Chara doesn't seem to take the priest's name very optimistically, their face coming close to a snarl. "I hate him," they snap. "I _hate_ him for getting us into this mess. We would've been out of here a long time ago."

You agree. It was Father Martin who had snatched you away from freedom, claiming that you had so much more to witness here. Whatever sick game he's playing for exposing you and Chara to the horrors of the asylum as though it was meant to be beneficial. All you'd gained is two missing fingers, and with Chara— well, just a lot of injuries to make your damaged hands look like child's play.

There's so much hate in this child, you recall, and admittedly for a lot of logical reasons. You feel like you should be encouraging them that hate is a strong word and that you shouldn't hate anybody, but you'd be kidding yourself. You hate Father Martin just as much as anybody who ever laid a finger on you in this god-awful hellhole. You're not one to teach Chara anything useful.

You approach a kitchen and make your way to the door, where if you look through the glassy window on the doorway, you spot man hanging idly over the edge of a porch-like area of the place. He's gazing out on the rain clouds that are becoming a brighter grey with the promise of a sunrise behind them. It must be getting to be daytime pretty soon.

You approach him with a great deal of exercised caution, having learned from you encounters from former passive-looking Variants. Despite his back being turned to you both, you'd think that for sure he'd gain an idea that you both were creeping up behind him.

He says nothing, like he'd rather watch the lightning storm than pay attention to either of you. Well, you're completely fine with that.

Guiding Chara away and bringing a finger to your lips to ensure that you both will be extremely quiet, you push along into another cookie cutter replica of a hallway in the administration block. It's filled with desks and pool tables to shy away from the concealed morbidity that truly ran this place.

You stop when you notice a man in the corner of a large break room, knelt down to where a large-screen television broadcasts nothing but a channel of static.

The noise entices you, the white noise he's praying to. You almost join him, stuck in an odd trance as white and black dots waltz along your vision, providing pictures that form amongst the crackling television screen. It's so interesting that you dare to slowly creep forward, just so that you can maybe come closer to it, almost become intimate with the thing stuck in the static.

A tiny hand that clutches your wrist rather firmly tugs you backward. You find Chara giving you an incredulous stare, almost fraught with some form of worry.

"Are you out of your mind?" they hiss, and constantly their pupils dart back and forth to where the man is praying.

"You've lost it," Chara seethes again, through clenched teeth. "You're looking at the static, aren't you?"

The mention of the static kicks something rather primal into you, where you're almost willing to step right back around and dare to get one last glimpse of the static.

You're almost for certain now that there's something there, if you could just get a better glimpse--

"Miles!" Chara turns you right back around with another exclamation that they don't bother to keep entirely under wraps. "What the _hell_ are you doing?"

You don't know how to respond. How will you tell them that you're not crazy and there really is something that's begging for attention if you could just look a bit harder, stare just a _little_ bit longer?

_What are you thinking?_

The kid waits a long time for your reply, unfazed by the constant whining of the television's buzzing. Buzz, buzz, buzz. Like a fly stuck in your ear. It's driving you mad.

Maybe you really _are_ mad.

But you can't accept insanity. You still have to get this kid home— or wherever they feel safe, that is, if home isn't secure for them. You can't leave Chara alone just to search in the static.

Slowly, you reach out and clasp their cheek softly into your palm. Their firm look of anger withers into a childlike innocence that you wish was easy to just capture and stuff away until all of this was said and done.

You feel their pressure sink into your broken hand with a look of secret pain that you know they're got bottled up deep, deep inside them. They're just a small child, no matter what has happened tonight or any other night before that.

"Nothing is wrong," you murmur gently. "I'm just tired."

Chara frowns deeply. "We're all tired," they reply, looking at you with those probing eyes that they're using to analyze your truths and lies. Like you're untrustworthy.

The thought has you squeezing their battered check ever so softly, before they begin to wince at you touching a possible sore area.

"Let's go home, kiddo," you whisper.

They wait a while, and your thumbs trails to a threatening tear that's gently leaking from their half-closed eyelids, that you realize are becoming rather red and wet.

Chara finally nods. "Okay," they say, in the tiniest voice you think you've ever head them use. It's scratchy from the leftover hauntings of the Variant and suffocation episode.

then they lift themselves out of your small hold and rush towards the door again. They purposely pay no mind to the prayer disciple and have their back turned to him.

You break out your journal swiftly to explain why you found yourself recording the praying Variant.

_The static again. A patient knelt in prayer. Maybe he bought Father Martin's line of bullshit. Maybe he hears what I hear but more clearly. Maybe it's his way out of this place. The Priest called it the Gospel of Sand._

Your camera blinks red again and you shut everything away to join Chara at the door.

-

The Variants are praying. They're all knelt beside their beds so that they're almost all in a sort of trance. They don't even notice that you've happened to walk into their darkened rooms. In the distance, an organ echoes along the halls.

It's unnerving, to say the least.

Chara observes the Variants with a mixture of curiosity and sympathy. If it's true that this religious ceremony is built upon coping with the horrors of Murkoff, then the kid should know as well as anybody here that their frantic praying is above reasonable.

The corridor you're walking down is pretty large, all with closed doors that you don't find welcoming. But it still triggers the odd need to explore.

It pays to open a door and right as you enter you spot a file right on the edge of a bedside table. That way you don't have to do much exploring.

It's not anything useful. It just seems to be a recorded file of a schizophrenic patient talking about the Walrider. Begging for it to take him and sew whatever Gospel it promises into his flesh.

Nothing here.

You scoop Chara away, inwardly thankful that they're so inticed by the organ music and the praying patients that they're allowing you to freely take them wherever you please without a sharp tongue to comment on it. Although they do give an interesting glance down at where you've placed your newfound document in the bag hidden underneath your coat.

The next door is much more interesting with a strong breeze that indicates that the window ahead is clearly open. Some rainfall even whiffs through the opening from outside, and a curtain flaps furiously in the storm.

You notice the dark splatter of something reddish-brown upon the table that you're about to climb onto to reach the windowsill.

Despite everything, you're still following the blood. You're headed in the right direction.

Chara shows clear displeasure as you hope onto the window. "We're not about to crawl along the wall in the rain, are we?" they ask. "It's wet."

They're certainly right about that. It's still pouring sheets of water onto the ledge that you're about to slip onto. But you have to take this chance; you're so close to freedom now that you can almost taste it.

"It was wet before," you answer, "and we were fine."

Chara sighs. "Yeah, I know."

You hop out and grab a fierce hold of the brick wall as the thunder roars above your head. If you were to ever slip and fall to your death, now would definitely not be the time.

Eventually Chara joins you and is practically glued to your hand that you've extended to them. You understand their concern now, being inches away from escaping this place yet being just as close to death at the same time.

As you round a corner, with a broken pipe spewing water near you, there's an enlightened window that's open, viewing another Variant crouched in prayer on his bedside. That must be where you're supposed to go.

The water splatters your head and your heart flips at the idea of its impact pushing you off the wall, but even with your drenched figure you're able to stick onto the ledge and whirl around to jump inside. You both are soaked and freezing by the time you push yourselves into the room.

Chara's teeth visibly chatter and they attempt to weakly cover themselves as their clothes are now clenched onto their skinny frame.

"I've never been happier to be back inside this place," they stammer through their shivers.

You run your hands along your shoulders in your own attempt to soothe your trembling body. At least the candles outside are providing some form of warmth, given that there are so many of them.

When you turn, the words _"GOD HATES SICKNESS"_ are plastered on the wall in blood, in big letters. You feel an extreme form of anger tighten in your chest at the words, but you don't know why.

"Come on," you instruct Chara, softly as to leave the Variant sharing the room with you in peace. "We're almost there."

Chara walks slowly behind you, and you see them nearly flinch as they catch a glimpse of the words on the wall. You don't question it, but they stay directly behind you at all times as church bells ring in your ears.

Something's happening.

You follow now the trails of candles that illuminate bloody words and symbols written along the walls, as though to guide you. At the end of the hall, with the chiming church bells silencing the organ, a shirtless Variant is hunched over, pitifully holding a candle. He's blocking something from you.

You turn and nearly start as the Twins wait for you, almost seeming like guards now. They have no weaponry in their hands now, so it calms you slightly. But their massive figures are still not reassuring in that they could probably twist your neck in less than a millisecond.

When you find courage to make eye contact with them, they seem no longer interested in you. Not that you're complaining.

Chara peeks out from behind your back. "What are they doing?" they ask aloud, voice hushed.

The chapel doors are open, providing you access to where, at the end of the hallway, Father Martin seems to be tied to a large cross. Variants are surrounding him in an odd sense of eagerness.

You frown. What are they up to?

"They're not going to hurt us," you promise Chara, but you're not so sure yourself.

Chara looks at you with a gleam in their eye that doesn't seem to entirely brighten their dark expression. "You seem confident," they comment, but their voice is tinged with sarcasm.

You creep slowly forward into the chapel, and with a sharp heartbeat of panic you hear the Twins close the chapel doors behind you, locking you in.

"I'm not sure anymore," you murmur, and Chara has gone quiet.

Your parents were fairly religious, more as a mandatory sort of agreement to visit church every now and then, like an average man may do just to prove that he's not entirely lost in this world. You've opened up a bible a couple of times in your life, so you're having a horrible sense of dread upon seeing Father Martin's figure tied to a cross that this may not be going in an optimistic direction.

However, Father Martin doesn't seem to have caught on to your growing unease— or presence, for that matter. He's occupied with his servants as they seem to prepare a pile of wood below Father Martin's feet.

"Am I ready?" he asks them, sounding like he's suppressing excitement.

The Variant he's addressing nods. "You are," he answers solemnly. "We will join the Walrider in just a moment."

You really, _really_ don't like where this is going.

Then Chara tugs on your arm and points to a small table in front of you, covered by a bright red velvet. Upon it is a key.

"There," they whisper. "The key to the elevator. It has to be!" But they don't sound too sure. They seem just as anxious as you about what's happening.

Hesitantly, you walk slowly over to the table, as to not catch Father Martin's attention or catch the glimpse of any of his bowing subjects. You snatch the key from the table and attempt to stealthily sneak away, but Father Martin glances up and gives a gasp of surprise.

"My Job!" he exclaims; obviously he's more ecstatic to see you than you are to see him.

Then his gaze shifts onto Chara behind you, who cautiously steps out onto his full view. His stare upon them is rather favorable.

"And his faithful Acolyte," he praises, giving Chara what seems to be a grateful smile.

Chara shuffles extremely uneasily under his eyes until he looks back up at you. His face seems way too excited for you to be at ease. Around him, the Variants are crying out in prayer, but it sounds to you like the moaning of agony more than anything.

"You both shall escape to tell them," he instructs quickly. "This is your penultimate act of witness."

You step away with great dread. Chara's attention hasn't wavered from Father Martin for a second.

"The promise of the prophets was always freedom from death!" He continues, like he's overwhelmed. "And here it is!"

Then he sounds more intent, more determined. "You will watch and record my death, my resurrection. And together we will be free!"

The chapel doors behind you are locked; again, you don't have any choice in this matter.

"What is he..." Chara's voice trails off in what seems to be horrid awe. They seem to be piecing one and two together.

"You are no longer in any danger," Father Martin reassures you. "I've fixed the elevator. It will take you to freedom. We will all of us be free!"

That's all you take away from his requiem of insanity. He's passed the breaking point, sure, but now you're absolutely certain that your escape is now engraved into fate. There's nothing that you can do now that will prevent you from exiting those doors and getting out of here. Relief lighting your shoulders for the first time all night.

It's then that you see the Variant closest to Father Martin holding a stick of fire. He turns to him, sounding close to tears.

"Now, my son," he whispers to him.

The instructed man kneels down to the wood, and the flame catches one of the pieces ablaze. It quickly spreads to the rest of the pile, igniting a hearty fire that promises nothing but horrible things for the wooden cross that Father Martin is strapped to.

The flames catch up to Father Martin quickly so you equip your camera, as you were told to do so. If you didn't, quite possibly the Variants would get upset and leave you in here to die. You don't want to admit that this is the least you could do for the Priest that has lost it to the point where he's committing the worst suicide imaginable.

His screams are horrid, and his body flails against the fire. You wonder if something instinctive is now telling the Priest to escape the chains and get out, but it's too late now. The fire consumes him as his screams turn into agonized cries that ring horribly in your ears. You can't help but feel a terrible wave of pity for this disillusioned man, hypnotized into safety by a demonic entity to where he had to burn his body to escape.

His body is melting into something awful and ugly that you want to turn away, but you can't. It's like the patterns in the film; his dying face as the flesh is melted from his body is so horribly inticing that you can't look away. It's like a train crash.

You watch a bit longer as the Variants praise Father Martin as he burns alive on the stake.

And then he falls silent, his body limp in the flames. The men cheer louder.

You take out your journal; seems to be a good time as any to write down your thoughts.

 _I can't believe Father Martin one-upped Jesus Christ himself in shitty ways to die. And I don't believe I'm going to miss him,_ you comment bitterly; humor is your only mechanism in this situation, because truly _none_ of this is funny. None of it.

Your thoughts wander: _A way out. If he's telling the truth, now I've got a way out. And a story to tell._

_He wants me to spread his Gospel. I'll tell the whole fucking world._

You bury your camera and journal when you're satisfied and something heavy drops onto your chest. Something cold.

Chara.

You snap your head to them and you're greeted with their face wider than you've ever seen it, illuminated by the flames they're staring into, so that the flickering embers are dancing in their pupils. Their face is so traumatized by horror that their lowered lip is quivering violently, on the verge of tears. Yet they can't turn away from the awful scene.

Suddenly a tear drips onto their cheeks. You panic.

"Oh my god." You sweep them into your arms and run for the exit. They don't even attempt to struggling in your tightened grip as you rush forward and head out the doors that the Twins somberly open.

You rush out without a single thanks in their direction. Your thoughts now are all on the kid and getting them as far away from Father Martin's corpse as possible.

"Oh god, kid," you whisper, and caress their head as well as you can as you're rushing through the halls. "I'm so sorry. Oh my god, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let you see that. That was my fault."

Chara then sniffs and buries their head into your neck. "He was on fire," they whimper.

You keep going.

"You shouldn't have seen that," you repeat, over and over, like it'll make things better. You haven't dared to set them back down on the floor. "That was all my fault. I'm so sorry, kiddo."

"Why did they think it would make things better," they sob. Their voice is as a fragile as broken glass now, and it's physically beginning to hurt your heart.

"It doesn't," you murmur. "It doesn't make anything better. None of that was okay. None of it."

Why did Father Martin allow a child to watch him burn to death? It makes you angry, and you no longer feel any form of pity for the Priest. He deserved to die the way that he did.

"I'm not an acolyte," they sniffle thickly.

You stroke their hair as best as you're able with one hand. "You're not an acolyte," you confirm gently. "Don't listen to him. He's crazy and he's dead."

The hallway is quiet so you slow down your running to catch a quick breath. You can't hear the fire or the church music anymore, so you decide that it's a good time to pause and just hold Chara for a while.

"You're nothing but a good kid," you whisper. "You're such a good kid, Chara. You're nobody's acolyte, you're not even a Variant. You're good, kiddo. You're so good."

Chara takes a sharp sniff as you feel the corner of your jacket become soaked with silent tears. You rock them slightly.

"You're good," you promise softly. Your whispering voice echoes in the lonely hallway. "You're good. You're good. You're good."

Then Chara is silent, only slightly shaking now. You rub small circles into their back for a small while, before you adjust them in your arms and continue forward. Your grip is still tightly clasped onto them; they're in no place to walk right now, and for once you're fine with that.

In the distance, from where you're seated, you hear Walker's chains from the farthest end of the hallway. You don't have a split second before he spots you.

"Shit!" You begin to sprint with all of your might with a child in your arms down a long and endless corridor, filled with closed doors. The horrible sense of panic is making your heart thump uncontrollably. Please, please don't have gone down the wrong way.

You have definitely gone the wrong way.

"He's coming closer!" Chara screams in a blind moment of anxiety; they seem completely fixated on Walker from behind, since you can't see behind you and they can.

"Don't look at him!" you pant. "Just look at me, okay? Just look at me."

The only thing you can do is push yourself into the door at the farthest end of the hallway, Chara practically spilling out of your grip, and slam the door behind you.

There's nothing in this room save for another door that leads you right back outside into the corridor.

You get an idea.

With Walker banging on the one door you'd just entered, he seems to have no foreknowledge that the door right beside it leads to the exact same room. You wait a moment much too long for comfort before Walker burst through the door with an animalistic roar, and you hurry out the other door while he's distracted.

"Is he gone?" you ask Chara as you race down the hallway in an attempt to head where Walker originally was.

Chara looks up from your shoulder where you'd instructed them to look, and you feel their fingers clench uneasily into the back of your jacket.

"No! He's coming back!" They curl back into you with a flood of terror. "God, why can't he just go away?"

"We're close now," you pant. "We're so close. It's going to be okay."

The room Walker was just in is so dark that you have no way to reach your camcorder, and with Walker right behind you, you feel yourself panicking as you flail around in the dark, looking for an exit of some sort.

Then, Chara estates with their head to one of the walls. "There's a vent!" they exclaim. "Put me down and let's head over there!"

Walker is right behind you, you can swear he is. Putting Chara down would take too much time. So you adjust them only into one arm and hurl yourself into the vent shaft they're referring to with a pained cry. Luckily, the kid's light enough for you to toss them in, and you both squish together uncomfortably in the tight shaft.

You hear Walker still, so you push forward, with them still in one of your arms.

Chara is breathing harshly. "What do you think you're doing?" they ask sharply, in between breaths.

The floor beneath you breaks so suddenly that you can't even register what's happening before you hit the ground on one of your bad ribs, and you let out a hiss that contains a well-suppressed cry of pain.

When you adjust yourself to where you can prop your aching self into one elbow, you notice that you must have climbed onto the top of a ventilation, and that your sudden impact with it must have caused it to collapse from the sudden weight.

But at least Walker is gone.

Chara must have fallen out of your arms in the fall, and you look around quickly to see them curled on the floor, next to where the shaft first broke.

"Kid!" You wobbly head over to them, but they don't look up. "Are you okay?"

They don't answer, instead shaking so horribly that at first you think they're crying. But then they attempt to get up with clenched teeth and eyes shut tightly. Something is wrong.

"My ankle hurts," they hiss.

You look at where one of their legs has been sprawled out from their fetal position, and in the dim light of what seems to be another kitchen you've fallen into, it seems to be at an ajar angle.

You give a concerned frown. "How bad does it hurt?"

Chara sits up properly now, but their pained expression hasn't ceased. If you look closely, you can see bulbs of sweat on their face.

"Really bad," they answer.

Something must have happened in the fall to make either one of the shafts bang into their ankle, or they were just particularly unlucky in where exactly they fell.

You spring to your feet and kneel back down to offer them a hand. "Can you get up?"

They take your hand shakily but as they struggle to move the leg in question, Chara attempts to put weight on the foot and lets out a tremendous scream of pain cut short as they stumble back to the floor.

"It's bad," they gasp. "It hurts so bad."

You look around, to make sure that there's no looming threat, before you lean over their hunched position and gently duck one arm under their knees in order to lift them back into your hold, bridal style.

"Does this hurt?" you ask them, eyeing the ankle that's placed in another awkward placement.

Chara pauses before digging their head back into your chest. "No," they mutter, "but it still hurts like hell."

"You probably broke it," you comment grimly. "But we're almost out now." By now it's surely not going to be an inconvenience for much longer that Chara is practically handicapped now, and unable to walk by themselves without your assistance. In a moment, it's not going to matter.

Chara looks at their broken ankle for a long while, and you allow them to. Then they look up at you again.

"We're still going to that diner, right?" they ask in a small voice, derived of any form of personality that they ever carried beforehand.

You nod. "We'll just walk right in, broken leg and all."

They give a small laugh. "And missing fingers."

"And missing fingers," you agree.

Then you adjust them into your arms properly, asking, "Can you reach the key?"

Chara reaches forward to paw through your bag that you've placed underneath your jacket, scavenging for a while before they hear something clink around amongst the multiple papers, and with a look of triumph they pull out the elevator key.

"We're all set," they declare. "Let's get out of here."

"Couldn't agree more myself."

You open the door— with Chara's help, granted—and you're happy to find that you're right in front of the elevator. The doors that were once closed when you'd first walked up those stairs is now available to you. You could almost cry right now.

It's much roomier than you'd thought, in the elevator, with an ugly green color along the walls and a fluorescent light providing grim lighting to the room. But it's the nicest thing you've ever had the pleasure of stepping into.

You lean forward so Chara can get at an angle to where they can reach the elevator's buttons and plug in the key painlessly. You hear a satisfying click, and the webbed door closes. The elevator hums to life and sends you downward.

It's so nice to finally take a breath that you relish the atmosphere, even with the loud whirrs establishing that machinery isn't probably updated to the latest technology, but you're not one to complain.

"God," Chara breathes. "I'm so glad that that's all over."

You watch as the elevator takes you slowly down to the administration desk, where you were first trapped in this horrible building. Now you're leaving, with nothing but broken ribs and missing fingers, and all your innards still intact. And one hell of a story.

Then it stops, and you expectantly wait for the doors to open. But there's a pause. It's beginning to make you feel trapped.

"Um, is something wrong?" Chara asks, sounding just as nervous as you're becoming.

You hesitate when the doors before you still don't open. You can't be this close and have it ripped away from you again. You just can't. "I don't know..."

And then the elevator spirals downward.

 _No._ No, this wasn't supposed to happen. This was not supposed to be this hard.

You have to get out. You can't do this. You made a promise and you have a story to tell and now wherever you're going is going to prohibit all of it.

It's so dark, so that you could be plummeting to the center of the earth for all you know.

Chara is shuffling in your grip with a horrible panic that they're struggling to control.

"No," they whisper. "No, please no..."

They sound even more frightened than you, and if Chara knows their way around here, then...

The bronze walls you're sliding down shift into a metallic grey, and immediately upon it Chara snatches onto you like a hash vine. They're clinging to you so tightly that you temporarily forget that the elevator has stopped.

"No!" they scream into your shirt. "Please! Please don't do this! Don't go in!"

"Hey," you say, making your voice firm so that they can hear you clearly. "Hey, it's okay. We'll just..."

You look up and observe the futuristic basement that you've happened to accidentally crawl into. You'll never find your way out. This is where they're going to find your bloody bodies.

But you lie and murmur, "We'll just find another way out."

You step forward, hesitantly, like the elevator is just glitching temporarily and is going to skyrocket you back to the surface. But it's frozen, so you continue and reach the closed doors at the end of the room you've entered.

You're surprised to find yourself blinking at the harsh white walls that you're introduced to. It's almost arctic, with the choppy wall textures that remind you so much of a glacier.

In your arms, Chara is refusing to partake in the world around them and now reside in your chest, muttering and sounding close to the point of breaking down. You can catch multiple "no"'s strung together into an incomprehensible sentence, and they seem past the point of wanting any sort of reassurance.

If Chara is having some episode upon perhaps remembering these walls and this basement, then something really bad must have happened down here. Surely this can't all be for nothing.

It's a long hallway, and at the end is another set of closed metal doors. Everything tastes so clean and sharp, unlike the decaying rot of the asylum above. Surely there's no way that any of this could be connected.

When you get closer to the doors, you see a symbol on the top of the wall, plastered in a shining image that just seems to add on to your endless questions.

You open the door, struggling a bit with Chara being completely absent now in their anxiety, and you encounter a room with a bluish hue. Blood trails recall a past struggle with something unkind, and something causes you to freeze.

You've seen this place before.

Everything is now outside of your control, emotionally. You feel cold and dreadful, more than you've ever been all day. The tense emotions cage you in like a trapped bird, begging you to finally grab hold of your wavering insanity and just let loose. Everything is gone now; there's absolutely no hope of you getting out of this alive.

Your gaze is glued to the screens behind a desk you're standing in front of, like you're in a trance you're unable to break yourself out of. Like this is all just a bad dream.

You read the words over and over:

_Murkoff Industries: Project WALRIDER_


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alt: despite everything, it's still you...?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! I finished this chapter up after MANY long nights and I put a loooot of heart into it, so I hope you enjoy!!
> 
> I think it goes without saying what this chapter is going to feature if you've watched the ending of Outlast, but if you haven't: Be prepared for explicit gore and violence and a lot of things along the lines of Walrider-is-a-big-jerk-who-preys-on-ones-sanity
> 
> Thank you so, so much for reading this, I've put so much work into making this crossover what it is and I appreciate everyone who has left a kudos or a nice comment on this!!! You all rock!!!
> 
> But I'm getting ahead of myself, so have fun lovelies and enjoy your problematic duo!

_"FRANKENSTEIN, or the Modern Prometheus" by Mary Shelley, published anonymously in 1818. Chapter 23, excerpt—_

_"Man," I cried, "how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom! Cease; you know not what it is you say."_

_I broke from the house angry and disturbed, and retired to meditate on some other mode of action._

-

_Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck._

_Whoever finds my corpse— trust no one and tell everyone. I am not crazy. I know, I know, only crazy people say that. But I am as sane as this world allows, with a camera full of evidence. Don't call it a Gospel. Call it a mockery of reason, let the world know it's Murkoff's fault. Bury these bastards with my mutilated dead body._

On the back:

_Kid, if you're reading this, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. Please get out and run as far away as possible from all of this._

_Please. Just get out._

-

"Go forward." 

Chara's monotone voice is garbled from their placement of their face smothered into your shirt. They're guiding you through the darkness of a blackened hallway from the corner of their one eye that isn't buried into your chest.

"Left." 

You follow blindly now. Both of you are in a terrible trancelike state that has you now just taking mechanical steps, like a robot. Energy is thoroughly sapped from your body, and every step is a trudging effort with a pulsing ache. Pain is catching up to your ribs and fingers.

"Avoid dead bodies." 

The mechanical responses Chara is providing makes you extremely concerned of their mental status, as you are just as curious about your own. 

But now it's automatic to move forward, your body slumped in overwhelming lethargy that makes your bones heavy and weak. But there's nothing left now but the primal urge to survive.

Eventually the hallway becomes bright again, and Chara shuts down again and doesn't take any sort of interest in the environment around them.

You adjust them in your arms, mindful of their sensitive leg. "Kid," you murmur, "are you okay?"

They make it at first so that they didn't hear you, and the only thing the echoes along the empty hallway is your footsteps that reverberate across the glacier walls, smothered in blood.

"My ankle is broken," they mumble stiffly. "Of course I'm not okay."

You frown as you continue to walk, passing rooms filled with orderly supplies and bloodbaths housing fresh organs in the midst of it. The clean atmosphere layered beneath the morbid scene reminds you of the hellpit you've managed to crawl out of.

A large "A" on the wall informs you that there are multiple areas like this underground. How big _is_ this place?

You spot a file and push in the door into the room it's seated in. Chara spots it and grabs it for you without question. Around the room are jars of heads stacked along the counter.

It's pure perseverance that leads you to find curiosity in the file, but you allow Chara to stay put and make no attempt to even sneak a peek as they reach out with a wince to stuff it into your bag brusquely.

They seem irritated but question nothing, and are silently grateful that you don't ask them to read it aloud or anything. You're not that foolish.

There are so many secrets that you're blatantly missing now; but in honesty, that's not a priority anymore. Both of you are hurt and confused and you've drained yourself of everything you have to trek this asylum. You don't think you can have much more of this reporter's curiosity left in you.

The next corner takes you to yet another closed door. "Delivery Exit", the labeled sign states. You're not sure what that means, but you suppose you'll find out.

It's another corridor filled with a couple more blockades of tanks and crates, but nothing terribly exciting. The most excruciating performance is sliding across a stock of something hard and covered with blue plastic. You adjust the kid in one arm, with only a harsh wince in return for having to prop their ankle, and shimmy across with meticulous care.

Thank god nothing's chasing after you.

You reach the other side and decide that, since there are a couple more obstacle to maneuver around with having both hands required, keeping Chara in one arm's hold will provide you with having at least one hand at your disposal.

"Comfortable?" you ask.

"Yeah. I feel great," Chara mumbles; you expected no less than a scathing reply.

You stop when something orange and golden catches your attention; so unlike the metallic hues that this Underground facility has offered.

The colors bring you back to the upper room of the asylum more than anything; you feel like your memory has been cut short of anything that's ever happened outside Murkoff's doors. So when you catch sunlight just outside of your reach, it's but a distant concept to you.

When you realize what you're looking at, a primal urge to escape just to step outside one more time has your body managing to override the aches and lethargy. 

You _have_ to get out; this bulletproof window is all that's holding you from the exit.

You look down at Chara; their face is still hidden in the crook of your neck.

It must have been so long since they've had freedom so close to them; longer than you've had it taken from you.

"Hey," you whisper, giving them a gentle nudge to have them shuffle. Chara slowly perks up with an ungrateful glance, looking ruffled with sleep. But you want them to see it.

"Look." You point with your one index finger to the opened doors. It's dark in the next area, seeming to be a place for housing inactive military vehicles. You've suspected by now that Murkoff had a few supporters in higher statuses, so it's not surprising to you. It's the effect of the darkened room that has the orange sunrise illuminating from the entrance, almost welcoming.

In your own sense of awe, you don't notice a small pair of hands press against the glass, like they can feel the sun's warmth from here. Their hands match the dried, bloodied handprints on the window; you suppose that could be metaphorical if you had the mental strength to think hard about it.

When you look down, Chara seems to be in some trance, silent in their own wonder. They look close to crying; that makes two of you, at least.

There's a door that's opened beside you that's debating your attention, so eventually it's the idea of getting out once and for all that has you pulling away from the sight of the sun, even with Chara's protests that are protruding from their unhappy body posture.

"It's sunlight," they whisper, having you stop. Their voice is cracked and so full of this childlike wonder that has you remembering with the sensation of freefall that this is still a _child_ you're handling.

"Yeah," you say; what else do you say? "It is. We're close, kiddo. I swear."

When you attempt to walk away into the next room, Chara turns to wrap their arms on your neck and give a harsh squeeze.

"I don't want it to go away again," they sniffle.

You wrap them in both arms and attempt to hoist them higher without moving their legs around too much; you really don't want to be fooling with their broken ankle anymore.

"It won't go away," you promise. "It's going to be right outside when we walk out of this god-forsaken building."

Chara crumples back into your hold, finally allowing you to walk away from the window without a fight. They say nothing, but the occasional wet sniff into your shoulder assures you that this kid is very close to sobbing again. Maybe because of the pain in their ankle or some form of traumatic breakdown you can't understand. Maybe just pure relief. Maybe all three.

You walk into an overall empty room, save for the medical supplies stacked along the sides that doesn't make the area stand out any more than the other rooms that you'd visited. Except that something grabs your interest.

On one end of a wall stands a board, in marker, is a giant formula for something entitled "Morphogenic Engine."

You frown heavily, staring with great displeasure and borderline fury at the sequences of numbers and letters that provoked the Variants into the monsters they are now.

You adjust Chara— who has checked out momentarily and retreated into shrinking into your shoulder again—in one arm and take out your journal so that you can write your thoughts as best you can with a child in your arms:

_This is the Morphogenic Engine. A few lines of mathematics, an algorithm. Reprogram us, turn us into nightmare factories. A few numbers on a dry erase board._

Chara peeks out from their hiding spot to see what's gotten you so interested, but they let out a small whine when they see the equation and tighten their grip on you as they shrivel back. 

They don't want to see the equation.

You find yourself gazing at their figure with extreme pity, and when you look back up at the dry erase board, you become very, very angry.

 _Give me a hacksaw and a few hours alone with Dr. Wernicke's corpse,_ you snarl into your writing. _I feel I owe him a debt._

-

The sudden flaring of red lights gives your vision access to the doors Chara had said were open. They're now closing.

They perk up with growing panic as you take a step back from the blinking lights screaming alarms throughout the area, and you're about to ask them if something's there when you receive your answer with a sharp gasp.

"Walrider!" they breathe, mute with terror.

As though summoned by his name, you see wisps of black swarming around the flickering red beams, conjuring into a form you've seen before. Into something you've seen when you blink, or every time you see static.

You don't waste a second looking at it. You turn tail immediately and hug the kid closer to your chest as you sprint down the hallway you just came through.

The Walrider is breathing down your spine and summoning that raw horror you commonly experience when confronting him numerous times before. It's what has you shutting down your empathy for Chara's broken ankle as you fiercely vault over previous objects you took great care in getting across. To their credit, they let out small cries of pain but don't comment on it.

You're so close to the doors now. You just need to barge them open and you'll find somewhere to hide, that's all. Just find a place to hide and get everything sorted out from there.

When you push open the doors with your shoulder, your heart stops when you see that you've run face-first into Walker.

He lunges forward immediately to grab you, paying no mind to Chara as you let out a short scream in fright and Chara does the same. He swings you backward and tosses you to the floor violently.

You lose your grip on Chara when your tailbone hits the unforgiving ground, enacting all your crushed bones and bruises with a short grunt of pain. Chara lands close to you and exhales a sharp gasp when they attempt to land on their unbroken ankle.

Walker advances towards you menacingly; how did he even _get_ down here?

"Little pigs, little pigs," he taunts, breathing through his gaped mouth, his fangs gleaming in the fluorescent lighting around you. "No more escape."

As you back away slowly, reaching out an unhelpful arm to Chara as though to protect them somehow from Walker, the misty swarm of the Walrider swims into the room and encircles Walker.

You watch in pure awe as his gigantic structure is thrown effortlessly into the walls, emitting a loud scream from Walker as he's tossed around the room like a rag doll.

A small tap on your arm startles you, but Chara's eyes are glued to the brutal scene with what seems to be a mixture of fear and amazement. They gesture with a head tilt to Walker's flailing body; blood stains are now smearing the walls.

"Look with your night vision," they suggest quietly.

You fumble for your camcorder and do as they say. You're stunned to find that switching to infrared allows you to fully see the Walrider in action now.

The ghost's movements are human, where he's not just using the swarm to pick up Walker and toss him against the wall, but his own form to push him here and there. He has an athletic build, with protruding muscles and veins, but devoid of a face, and seemingly feet, as his legs begin to deteriorate into a nonentity that can't be captured as a corporeal being.

Walker's screams have become garbled, almost inhuman now. The Walrider must have punctured enough wounds internally to involve vocal damage. You find that you don't feel like celebrating in what you would assume to be a victory. 

At the end of the day, Walker is a victim just like Chara is. No one deserves such a gruesome pain, do they?

Chara. Augustus. Walker. Even Father Martin. No one chose this.

Then the Walrider dangles Walker in the air, choking him with the mist, as you back away uneasily. Is he going to throw him on top of you? Is he coming for _you_ next?

You bite back your words as Walrider throws Walker into a nearby vent shaft, having him dissolve instantly into a horrible mess of blood and intestine. The horrifying sound of body meeting metal and dissipating into a moist bloodbath isn't pleasing to the ears.

As the blood rains close to your area, you and Chara both cover your faces with your free hands to avoid any collision. But it's over now.

You get up shakily to your feet to view the gorey scene. The Walrider has disappeared again, into thin air, but you have a dreadful feeling that this isn't the last you'll see of him.

Chara is still slumped on the floor, viewing the bloodbath with conflicting emotions flashing across their facial features. They seem hesitant on lowering their defensive arms from their face, and do so with extreme caution.

You look at the dented vent, dripping with red ooze, where the rest of Walker's mutilated corpse now resides. Something aches, in the place where you should be feeling smug, maybe victorious, even? You don't know.

You lean back down to hoist Chara into your arms again, but they suppress a flinch when you attempt to scoop them back up again. You pause.

"He's gone," you reassure them. "It's over."

Chara doesn't seem convinced. They don't budge.

"Stop lying to me," they mutter. "It's never over."

You frown. Pity begins to seep into your gut and has you fumbling for a response.

"We can only keep moving forward," you decide with a sigh. "We'll just...deal with what comes."

Chara doesn't reply, looking over with disdain at Walker's bloodbath. You find yourself sheltering them from the sight by adjusting your body to where they can't get a clear view to the scene in front of them.

"I don't think he deserved that," they whisper.

"He didn't," you shake your head, surprising yourself at how genuinely sympathetic you are at Walker's fate. He was a menace, sure. But with enough foreknowledge, you know that he didn't truly understand what he was doing. He was just a soldier that was protecting people from someone sinister and evil.

Afghanistan taught him to kill; Murkoff is what twisted that tactic into a nightmarish ideal.

Then Chara looks up at you with wide eyes. "Is the Walrider going to do that to us?"

It's a reasonable question, but you can't think about that now. You can't _afford_ to think about it now. It's possible, honestly, to have a logical consideration on what could happen— what's going to happen—when the Walrider finally catches you in his web. Like flies and honey.

But it's a risky cycle downward if you take the time to think about it. You just won't stand for it.

Impersonating the embodiment of ignorance, you shake your head no at Chara's question.

"That won't happen," you say, forcing yourself to sound certain.

Not even Chara is fully convinced at your faux confidence. You guess that's fair; it's not like you believe yourself anyway. That Walrider makes your blood curl and a phantom thud of fear course through your heartbeats.

They bring their unbroken leg up to their chin and cast a vacant stare over to Walker's final resting area. You're sure now that they need a minute to unwind, which is fine. It sounds like the Walrider had disappeared for now.

A good time as any to write a note and not have your handwriting be influenced by the occupation of having someone in your arms.

You click your pen.

_This is the way you die. Ripped to pieces from the inside, watching your marrow scatter on a concrete wall._

You pause, wavering your pen on the paper, looking at the glassy face of Chara, obviously who has retreated to dissociating to forget the previous events.

It's awful. No one deserves to see something like that.

Hell, no one deserves to live like this. To _die_ like that.

 _You've escaped one hell, Chris Walker,_ you sigh. _God help me but I somehow hope you didn't find another._

You stuff away your journal to scoop a muted Chara back into your hold, this time without protest. They're already too far gone.

Walking to where Walrider had sprouted is probably not wise, and you feel sick on having to even think about wading through the bloody remains of Chris Walker, so you go backward.

"We'll find something," you say aloud, trying to sound reassuring.

Chara doesn't respond.

As you adjust them more appropriately in your arms, you realize that you're talking to yourself.

-

There's a door that opened.

When you're walking back the other way, you spot an entryway hold ajar; something you don't recall in your first rundown of the area.

Peeking inside, there's an office, guarded by heavy bulletproof glass and corpses of dead soldiers that had once been trying to preserve whatever this room upheld to the company.

And behind that glass, you spot a person.

It seems to be a man handicapped in a wheelchair, with his back turned to you. He's gazing at a medieval-styled painting that you don't recognize (you recall miserably failing art class), interpreting some brutal assassination with a naked man, blood pouring from his neck wounds. It suits the place.

You dare to step closer, interested in the man. You remember a while back having an unfortunate run-in with a handicapped Variant, but he seems different. More solemn, more down-to-earth.

Of course, you're only eyeing him from a distance. But then again, there's a wall of glass blocking you from him.

You have eight fingers left and a child with a broken leg with some German demon chasing after you. What else do you have to lose?

Chara looks up again, seeming finished with their alone time to check up on how the journey is proceeding. They seem equally baffled as you at the man in question, furrowing their brows into a tight knot on their sweating forehead.

"That's not good," they whisper to you, giving your jacket a good tug with one of their fingers.

Before you can backtrack your footsteps— the kid does have a point—the man tilts his head slightly over his shoulder. You spot medical equipment glued to his forehead, his face, keeping him alive and stable.

"Is someone there?" he calls out, voice husky. You don't see his eyes flicked into different directions; you wonder if that's just a physical attribute to his seemingly vexatious condition. "Come closer."

You feel like you don't have any other choice now. The man sounds so different than the other Variants; if he's even labeled a Variant at all. He has a sensible undertone that you find this odd respect in. Not to mention the fact that he sounds desperate for either company or assistance. Either way, you feel like you could be an asset.

You soothe Chara's blossoming anxiety with a small, awkward rub on their back with your bandaged fingers. "It's okay," you murmur, mindful of listeners. "Let's just see what he wants and get out."

Chara leans farther into the crook of your neck, muttering, "I have a bad feeling about this."

Suppressing your own sour anticipation, you walk towards the man in the wheelchair.

Almost immediately behind you, the metallic doors slam shut, locking you inside. Your heart skips a beat, but you force yourself to remain calm. If you stay close to the walls, maybe you'll have a chance.

Then the man turns, slowly, activating his wheelchair's movements towards you.

"I know, I know," the man sighs, and his thick German accent catches you off guard. You couldn't hear it very well from a distance. "I'm supposed to be dead."

Wait.

"No...no such luck," he continues, deeply forlorn at the thought. "I am older than sin, but somehow...the only one left. Because of Billy.

"He takes care of me. He may think I'm his father. He certainly loves me." There is not a sprinkle of any sort of affection in the old man's voice when he mumbles bitterly, "The poor idiot."

You're not even given a moment to process the information you're receiving clearly. It's a mounting pile of enlightenment and secrets that you feel yourself being dragged into by this man's hopeless lament. It's unsettling and burdensome; not meant for your ears.

Even Chara has taken interest in the man's words. They've put two and two together faster than you have, and when the puzzle pieces click in their mind their eyes widen.

You look down at them. "What?"

Chara just whispers like it's the most dexterous idea they've ever imagined being brought to life. Their eyes sparkle with something you can't properly read.

They tell you in a hushed, awed tone, "Wernicke."

Wernicke.

_Rudolf Wernicke._

The man before you has been stripped of his name, his country, his pride. Beforehand you may have viewed a stranger's position alike to Wernicke's as something harrowing. Now you look at the cords and bones attached to his flesh and you feel nothing but horrible, hot anger. He is not allowed to keep living where so many patients have died.

This is all his fault, isn't it?

Wernicke rolls himself over to a large poster plastered near his office desk, eyeing it with great favor, but his eyes still seem dark. He seems unaffected by your stiffened structure at your discovery of his identity. 

The picture he's eyeing is the same one you'd seen the second you'd first entered this underground lab. It introduced you to "PROJECT WALRIDER", shining proudly amongst the silent hallways and bloodied concrete. It reminds you faintly of an atom, and you wouldn't be surprised. Murkoff always enjoyed twisting human genetics to make a dirty paycheck.

"Do you know what this symbol represents?" Wernicke asks you, referring to the symbol like he has all the time in the world. Like he's a grandfather introducing a world of fantastical rules and symbolic metaphors that you'll never fully grasp.

When neither of you answer, Wernicke continues like it was a rhetorical question.

"It warns of a nanohazard. Microscopic machines, technology we have had for decades, but never mastered."

Your tongue is coated with rust at this point. As he's talking, Wernicke turns with his mechanical guts and body, and wheels closer to you. Both you and Chara express aversion at viewing his aged, prestige body with little features of age affecting his skin. It grates your temper fiercely, and you have to take a step backwards to prevent yourself from doing anything rash against the glass separating you from him.

Then Wernicke whirls away, and some odd pressure in your lungs unclenches itself.

"Murkoff discovered, in my research, a workaround," he continues, and there's an undertone of pride that you're able to pinpoint. "Turning the cells of human bodies into nanofactories. It's the natural function of cells to produce molecules, but through psychosomatic direction, we engineered the precise molecules necessary. Mind over body."

It's infuriating how logical, how precise, he makes the inner workings of dissecting the human mind to inject insanity into a being as easy as building blocks. Even Chara begins to squirm, but you have to silence them.

Wernicke has returned to his desk now, hesitating momentarily. "It was...foolish and wrong to think we could control it," he admits soberly. "To use mad men to control something so strong."

In the hallways behind you, you swear you hear an awful buzzing.

And then Wernicke faces you fully, regarding your glare with a somber expression, devoid of empathy. Devoid of anything, really, but perhaps negativity that has dread squeezing at your gut.

"You have to stop him," Wernicke tells you sharply. "To...murder Billy."

Your heart pricks. Chara grabs onto the hem of their shirt and clenches it with white knuckles.

"Turn off his life support, his anesthesia," Wernicke demands, unfazed by your shock. "You have to undo what I've done."

He continues, "No one can get out of this place while he lives. You must _kill_ him!"

As if on cue, the door behind you hisses back open, welcoming you back into the hallways of the underground lab.

Wernicke turns his back to you again, eyeing the bloody painting behind him, seeming lost with consideration and thoughts that you will never understand.

The main laboratory must be around here. There has to be a main somewhere in this gigantic basement used to experiment on people. You'd hate to use Chara in this situation for directions, especially when they're clearly stricken already and reliving some sort of horrific event by stepping foot in these halls again. But really, you don't have a choice at this point.

Conflict roils in your chest as you tread down the halls again, and a sign on the wall had pointed to "Morphogenic Engine Chambers," where you assume you're supposed to be heading. Wernicke's office door has slammed shut again, leaving you both alone.

"Miles, wait." Chara's voice is watery, but sudden enough so that you do end up halting in the middle of the iceberg-like corridor.

"Are you really going to do it?" Chara question you, tone carefully discreet. "Are you going to kill Billy?"

You'd like to tell them that Billy's death is justified, that he is an awful prisoner and deserves the swift punishment of death. But depicting experiment and ungodly entity is off-key and rolls around in your brain, trying to pick apart who is the center fault of the situation. Both Walrider and Billy accomplished horrible things as one, but...whose fault is it, _really?_ Was the scenario described as a crazy lunatic who used unbiased power for his own bidding, or is it a distraught lab rat who had no other choice?

It's unsettling, having to pull the plug on a guy you don't even know. But you remember Wernicke's warning: how no one can escape Mount Massive while Billy is alive. And that includes you and Chara.

"What other choice do I have?" you answer Chara, sounding impotent. You frown and furrow your brow, as if Billy's upcoming fate brings you pain. "You heard what Wernicke said. We can't get out as long as Billy is in control."

"But what about when Billy is no longer _in_ control?" Chara points out. "Then what happens to the Walrider?"

What _does_ happen to the Walrider?

That's a blank page that you're not sure you can answer right this second. So you have to reply flimsily, "I guess we'll find out."

Your ominous answer to their question leaves the silence that follows antagonastic.

-

Encountering the Walrider again leaves a grim taste in your mouth. Not to say that your previous visits with the Walrider have been pleasant, but you can't shake the feeling that you're being required to kill a man. You haven't done it yet, mindfully, but it goes against the foundations of your integrity. Your moral compass is going haywire, as if you didn't need anymore disputes making your stomach churn.

Running is still a pain. From squeezing through tight areas to even opening doors in a rapid fashion, having Chara with a broken leg isn't something you wish you could be dealing with at the moment. But through the short grunts of pain, you can tell that they're easily suppressing a ton of agony that you'd rather not uncover. And it's not like it's their fault, anyway.

You race up the steps, your breathing harsh and your body throbbing more than normal, but the ghastly whispers from below are enough to keep your feet sprinting. Chara has grown mute to the Walrider's terror, but their eyes are dark with some sort of intimate analysis that they're attempting to uncover privately.

It's when you have to run straight into a decontamination chamber that you remember how horrified and fragile they've become.

But you slam into it anyway, cornered by the Walrider, as the metal doors shut tightly, locking you inside. You should be feeling safe, but Chara's sudden death grip on your collar is not reassuring.

Their eyes are wide and their breathing is nonexistent as the green gas activates and unnecessarily cleans you. It's experience from their former panic that allows you to confidently shush them by bringing them up near the crook of your neck, conscientious of their shoulder burn and neck bruise.

"It's okay," you murmur, rubbing a small circle into their back with a thumb. "It's alright. See? It's done now."

As you speak, the doors open again and you walk calmly out into the new area, Walrider-free for now.

Chara relaxes as you continue to gently console them, until eventually they retreat back into a slumped position, practicing annoyance. "I'm not a _baby_ ," they grumble, but they sound too defensive to take seriously. It's almost a bit funny, if you were in a different, less life-threatening situation.

"Never said you _were_ a baby," you argue, but it's good-natured.

"You're already _carrying_ me like a baby," they argue with a huff. "No need to add insult to injury."

"I'm really appreciating your gratitude in these dark hours."

"I bandaged up your bloody hands _and_ I sat still while you cared for my shoulder," Chara protests, but they manage to sneak in a mischievous tone that enlightens the mood. "So let me have this."

The lighthearted banter is short-lived when you confront a large bag door with yellow lights that are screaming warning upon entering the upcoming area. With effort, the doors automatically open, and you come face-to-face with the heart of the lab.

The place is dim, with computers and surveillance systems backed along the walls, heavily monitoring the equipment below. There seems to be a gigantic machine that's plugged into the ceiling, flickering with life. The device is, beyond doubt, festering with the nanofactories that Wernicke mentioned.

Chara tightens their grip on you again, face whiter than you've ever seen it. They choke, "Oh my god..."

Their face is fraught with some sort of unspeakable trauma that you'd only gained snippets of with your time with them. It all seems to come to a peak upon seeing their glistening eyes and muted abhorrence. That's how you know you've hit something hard.

This must be the place.

Switching all of Chara's limp weight into one arm, you manage to sloppily record the sight and tuck the camcorder away to grab your journal. Chara has both arms choking your throat in a headlock as they shiver and shake, but you don't bother to make a comment on it. It's awful for you to have to push them like this, mentally, but there's nothing else you can do.

_The assemblies, the feed chambers, the precursor molecules. Vague memories of nanotechnology articles I've read online, probably drunk, probably distracted. Not nearly enough to know how to destroy it._

"I know where to go."

Chara, you realize, has been reading over your shoulder (quite literally) this whole time. You pause your pen on the paper and say, "Oh?"

They nod fiercely, their voice stiff and wooden. "Do you see that stairway up ahead?" They gesture towards the said doorway, leading down to where the root of the large machine lies. "That's where we go."

You've commented many times before how small Chara is. How little and young they are for someone to be crawling around this hellhole alone. They know too many survival skills, they've seen too many organs and blood and bones. And here they are, still, guiding you. Helping you even when you're confident that they hate having to be in this room, stacked with anonymous memories.

The thought of Billy transitions into the merging hatred you share with the doctors, the scientists, even Wernicke. Everyone who partook in allowing sick people to be dissected for the needs of making their brains superweapons.

Billy is gone. Probably has been gone for a long time now. Whoever remains behind is the shell of a human being.

 _But Billy is the center of it,_ you write, squaring your jaw. _Find him. Kill him._

_End this._

-

The glass bubbles contain humans suspended in mid-air, clinging to needles and wiring in their flesh. The Morphogenic Engine is on display again, with the screen being seared into the encircled audience's brains. The lights from the projection twinkle in the dim atmosphere.

The plan is to turn off the valves for one of Billy's many life supports. As far as you know, anyway. It's taking a lot of energy and resources to keep him breathing, and you're not exactly sure why, still. Maybe the scientists are just as afraid of the Walrider going haywire as you are.

"There," Chara murmurs, seeming to respect the silence that the room promises. Most bubbled patients are floating in their own gore, so that's probably a lost cause. But the one life pod they're referring to has a half-naked man, held back by heavy pipelines in his skin, staring blindly at the Morphogenic Engine being played in front of him. _Billy._

Billy Hope is old. That's your first surprise upon seeing him. And you end up recording your thoughts once more into your writing, to prevent yourself from speaking aloud:

_From Billy's patient reports, he ought to be twenty-three years old. He looks like at least fifty years of rough road, pain scratched deep into what I can see._

You frown, glancing back up at Billy whose glassy eyes are too focused on the Morphogenic Engine to notice your arrival. Commiseration stirs syrupy in your heart, almost unwillingly. But you can't help it; it's just like Walker and Augustus and everybody else you've encountered. However violent they are now, it's Murkoff that created them into monsters, whether they liked it or not.

 _Killing you would be an act of mercy,_ you say, somber, sympathetic.

So the first step is finding some valves. Seems simple enough; most equipment around here seems blatantly labelled, so finding the right switches shouldn't be too much of a pain.

Then the weight of Chara's body strikes your logic as faulty. It'd be no use to either of you having to carry them around like this while you're just going to be returning to the same spot.

You have an idea. But you're not sure you like it.

You kneel down on the floor, close to Billy's prison, and Chara gives a whine of complaint on the position you're cramming them into. But you loosen your hold on them gently, and they slump to the floor.

Chara's fingers dig into your jacket even after you've detached yourself from them. Their gaze is becoming angry, concealing fear.

"What do you think you're doing?" they ask incredulously, their eyes bright and luminous in the dark room.

You attempt to move away, but Chara's hold remains, and you prevent them from straining their broken body any further.

"I'm going to be back," you promise them. "I need to go and disable Billy's life support. It won't take long."

"No!" Chara shrieks, and then they realize that they've gone against their rule of yelling, and they snarl harshly, "Don't you _dare_ leave me alone with this freak!"

"The Walrider won't come near its Host," you fumble, and you're making this up as you go but god their grip on your shoulder is so tight and almost painful. And you need to get going. "If you stay hidden near Billy, he won't hurt you."

"You don't know that," Chara bristles, catching your lie immediately. "And you _said_ you wouldn't leave again!"

The accusation stings, because it's true. You've never been an expert on keeping promises, that's just how it is. But this time, this _one_ time where you break a vow, is brutal. It hurts because it's important to you, and now you're stomping it into a fine dust.

It's for their own good, you tell yourself. This way they won't have to stretch their ankle.

You try to force the reasoning from your throat, but Chara's expression is raw with sorrow. It catches you by surprise, and then you realize with a pang that they're worried about you. They're not so concerned about themselves getting hurt anymore, that's been out of the question for a while. It's _you_ that's going to be battling the Walrider. Its _you_ that has to give every last ounce of energy into finding Billy's life support and damaging it without any assistance. It's _you_ that's going to be alone.

Alone.

What a _terrible_ word.

You freeze in place, shrinking your world into the seconds Chara spends holding you in place, positioning you away from danger as long as they can before you leave them. It's inevitable, but they prolong it purposely. And you want to be mad, really, that they have no other explanation for themselves. But you realize that you're scared too. And there's something about fear that just freezes time in place and makes your brain move as quickly as molasses.

But you _have_ to go. There's no way around it.

So you do something odd. You take your damaged, eight-digit hands and cusp Chara's small face into them, and you lean forward to kiss their forehead. Their skin is clammy and there are strands of hair glued to their crown with sweat, but you're inexperienced with showing this sort of affection anyway. So it doesn't matter.

You pull away, and Chara's expression of distraught becomes tame. Their eyes glisten and they begin to sniffle.

"I'll be back," you say, firmly this time. "I promise."

Chara's lower lip quivers, but they let go of your jacket and fall away. They lean heavily on Billy's bubble, propping up their good leg and wiping away any excess tears.

"Okay," they warble. "Okay, just...be careful."

Touched, and now fueled with a newly-gained determination, you reply, "You too."

You get up, casting a final look at the man you're about to kill, and run off, with Chara's weight no longer burdening your own.

-

Ashamedly, not having a child to care for can come in handy when you don't have to fret over carrying them. Especially when you're recording the massive life support that is Billy's organs.

That doesn't mean that you're not overcautious, of course. Jesus, your mind keeps drifting back to that kid all alone and broken right beside the Host's prison like fresh meat. It makes you want to turn back every five seconds just to make sure that they're still okay on the floor, but you know that you have to move forward.

The room itself isn't as large as some other areas you'd seen in this lab, but when you're referring to multiple machines strung up and filed just to keep a single person conscious, the environment becomes quite suffocating.

You record: _This is Billy Hope's lungs. His liver. His life support. A machine the size of a football stadium to keep one lunatic alive._

_Fuck it all. Break it all. He has to die._

Your camera glitches red again, and you move forward.

-

_"FRANKENSTEIN, or The Modern Prometheus" by Mary Shelley, published anonymously in 1818. Chapter 4, excerpt—_

_"Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that modest man than he who aspires to become greater than his nature allows."_

Well, no need to rub it in or anything.

-

If Murkoff was so rigid about their safety precautions, it probably isn't wise to have a cut-off section that stick out like a sore thumb, and a drain-like pipe with signs printed: _DO NOT TURN THE VALVE._

Naturally, you know that this is where you need to be.

You twist the valve with all your might, grunting with effort, until eventually you're satisfied with the results. There's a faint hiss from somewhere outside the room that indicates that whatever you'd just drained performed the task at hand.

The following scream shouldn't be encouraging, especially when you know that you're killing off a supposedly innocent Variant. You can connect with Billy in a way that you wish you didn't, and that's through your similar hatred of Murkoff. If you were the Walrider's host, you think you'd have a hard time suppressing your anger against your abusers too.

The bad news is that he can't help it, so automatically he has to take one for the team.

With a jolt your footsteps quicken when you remember your shaky promise to Chara that Billy wouldn't hurt them. But now that you've officially put your plan into action, you're not so certain. A pounding fear loosens your steps as you race back to where you'd left Chara.

The problem is that with killing Hope comes angering the Walrider, which you quickly learn when you head back to the main laboratory and you hear a familiar swish of an unfriendly face somewhere in the room, haunting you.

The good news, however, is that Chara is still crouched beside Billy's bubble, unscathed. They seem to have shriveled as best as they can in their fairly exposed hiding place, and you wish you had time to chat if you weren't for certain that there's a psychotic nanoswarm that's pretty pissed at you. The last thing you desire is to send it closer to Chara's hiding spot.

"Are you okay?" Chara calls, concerned, as you run past them, towards a newly opened door with flashing yellow lights.

"Never better!" you call back. "Just stay hidden, okay?"

"Got it!"

You storm up the steps, casting all your broken joints and bruised body aside for the sake of just being a pulsing essence, alive and running and _safe._

Slamming open the next door that you come to, with its welcoming danger lights blaring in your eyes, you run to your next location before the Walrider has a chance to intervene.

-

Running up stairways _suck._

You decide that right as you've shifted into your autopilot sense, only acknowledging aching feet and throbbing ribcages as you climb up an endless stairway that's probably ascending right into heaven. But the looming threat of the Walrider helps you suck in choppy breaths into your battered lungs as you just pray to every god you can that it will all end soon.

Focus on the objective. Focus on the objective.

Focus.

_Focus._

When you reach the end of the stairs— thank _god_ — you turn and immediately jump. Exposure to loose ledges gives you a knack for seeing a risky height and automatically going for it.

The distance is a strength— no pun intended— and your ribs barrel into the unforgiving metal of the floor, but it's enough. It can be enough because despite your heaving breaths that sore your throat, and the multiple steps that made new areas of yourself ache with pain, you survived. Despite everything, it's still you.

And as long as the Walrider is away from that kid, you'll descend an endless stairway to hell if you have to.

Speak of the devil, having godlike powers seems to have made your escalation up the stairway a waste of time as the Walrider continues to close in towards you, its ghastly screams fueling your ankles and feet and knees until all you know is that your infrared is on and you are _running_.

There's an opened decontamination room up ahead in the dark corridor that you happily run into. It compresses you into temporary safety, and god, you could _cry_ right now because taking a second to at least catch your breath is a luxury you feel like you've never experienced until this moment.

You put down your camcorder and there's an elongated hiss of the usual gas, and for a second you have to restrain yourself from giving a reassurance to no one in particular that it's okay, the gas isn't going to hurt us.

"We're okay," you breathe aloud, to no one but yourself. It's a habit now.

The doors open and you leave, sagging in your steps from the journey.

Next up is the stupid electrical box.

-

_Please find attached the "Permission to Proceed" form for Patient William Hope, of the Murkoff Charitable Psychiatry program at Mount Massive Hospital in Colorado (USA)._

(You remember, in the sewers, when Chara told you about their parents' sick method of profit. A charitable program of dropping off unwanted lunatics for experimentation. "Charity" is a word you never took lightly.)

_The form is standard, and all relevant lines have been signed. It appears Billy is unaware of his mother's recent guided cardiac arrest. He is submitting to the experiment with the understanding (unfounded) of financial remuneration of his mother and a charitable distribution to her church._

(Bastards bastards _bastards_ )

_Wernicke, having read the boy's dream reports, believe he has enormous therapeutic potential._

(If you had even a morsel of Billy's power you would kill _every single one of these monsters_ )

-

Fiddling with high-tech equipment that could potentially sear your heart out is extremely outside your comfort zone when you can barely fix your own electricity at home. But at this point your state of mind has deterred into a "fuck it" standpoint, and when you're in that zone it's quite hard to get you out of it.

Billy's scream is much more vibrant this time, more garbled with pain and sounding closer than before. Abandoning your work on the wiring, you head back downstairs and anticipate the next step, which is to disable Billy's life pod failsafe entirely.

_End this._

-

When you jump, there's an awful tug that has you strangling out a horrid cry. Like your heartstrings have been shoved into your throat.

You're stranded in mid-air, which would be somewhat enjoyable if you weren't being squeezed by invisible nano swarms, staring right into the face of the Walrider.

The first thing you're able to acknowledge, outside of your horror that's crushing your ribs into your lungs and making you practically suffocate, is that everything _hurts._

It's like the Walrider has opened up some concealed wound that he's slowly, slowly tearing open. Just by looking at you with a face without eyes and all you know is how much it _hurts_ and you want to _die_ you want to die _right now_.

And then he's swinging you around like a rag doll, like a plaything, promising to place you down but then having the opportunity slip right through your fingertips.

He should have done this from the beginning. Now he's going to kill you and you can't die you made a promise you made a promise you _promised_ —

He lets go.

You scream as you fall, naturally, watching the ground rush forward to greet you, and the metal floor is unforgiving when you slam into the earth with an explosion of pain that's so fierce that your vision is spiraling with grey and red

It hurts so bad.

It hurts **s o b a d**

You think you're crying through your teeth, but you're not sure. The waves of pain that are crashing your body are like horrible currents, retracting and spilling into organs and bones and anything else. All you can manage is a pitiful moan that bleeds through your teeth, and the sharp throb of your nose is followed by a slick, wet copper taste in your mouth. There's a waterfall of red that's emitting from your bruised, now broken nose.

How did you not die?

You stammer to your feet, waiting for Walrider to take the final blow but.

There's nothing.

_He didn't kill you._

Why? Why _didn't_ he? You know these aren't the right questions to ask at the moment when your body has turned as vulnerable as porcelain; just one flutter of a breeze and you'll shatter. Your ribs are probably nonexistent shards of dust mingling with your intestines. Forget your limbs by now, those should have been broken a long time ago.

Your vision is blurring red and that's probably not good, but you manage to hobble upwards and walk off the wounds, even with a bleeding nose and broken bones that you feel every time you twitch a muscle.

_Why didn't he kill you?_

-

You find your way to Chara through sheer will and the fact that there's still a very angry Walrider somewhere in this area. He's bound to make his presence know eventually, but for now you can just head for the fail safe.

You find Chara away from their hiding place near Billy, and you worry for a terrible second before you spot them near the fail safe, right beside the button that you're about to press. It's like they knew by instinct. Either that or they're smarter than you give them credit for.

When Chara sees you, they shuffle immediately upright and look at your condition with wide eyes.

"Holy shit!" they breathe, and you eventually find your way over to them. Forgetting the mission temporarily, you cast all aspects of your pain aside and just focus on Chara's eyes that are glistening with imminent tears.

They let out a choked whimper at your condition, accidentally, and you let them reach out to tenderly touch your nose. A spark of brutal agony makes you hiss fiercely and duck away from their touch.

"Did he do this?" Chara whispers, their hand hovering over your shoulder, uncertain on whether or not they should touch you.

You heave a breath, then let it out. Breathe in, breath out. Never mind how dizzy you're becoming.

You don't answer their question, instead you draw your eyes to theirs and try to insert every last speck of determination and willpower and everything synonymous with ambition into your words.

"It's over," you promise, sober. Your voice is hoarse from screaming and crying but god, those words. You've wanted to say them and mean them for _so long_ now.

Chara seems taken aback by your certainty, and you see their lips fold together and quiver. They blink their eyes rapidly before breaking out into a smile, frail but real.

And then they laugh.

It's part hysterical, part too-loud-to-be-sincere. It's not what you would consider a nice laugh, if you were in a mundane circumstance and heard their crude giggling that chips their intervals of their voice, and is promoted by a smile that's too wide and exposes too many teeth for comfort.

An odd emotion stirs in your beaten chest, mixing up all these feelings and adjectives you don't have names for. Everything from Walker, to Trager's encounter, to being considered an apostle of a nano-built god, of all things.

It crams itself into your throat and presses so hard that before you know it you're laughing too.

Laughing is extremely harsh on the ribs, but you're too delirious with pain and relief to really know how to stop yourself. You're both sitting there, on the floor, right beside Billy's life pod, about to end this nightmare for good, laughing your asses off. You feel tears prick at the sides of your eyes as they drop to your cheek easily, with your crinkled eyelids that provide a safe haven for more tears to follow.

Eventually you both get your fill of acting insane for a while and the laughing dissolves into chuckling, and then it's gone. Both of your faces have blood and bruises and tears and snot and grime all over them, but god.

_God._

You're _okay._

It's _over._

Sniffing back up the remnants of your laughing session, you wipe your face and you murmur to Chara, "Would you care to do the honors?"

Chara's eyes shine outside of the glaze from their former waterworks. "I've been wanting to do this for some time now."

They don't seem to take into account their stiffened mobility from their broken ankle when they sit up on their knees and reach for the giant handprint. Billy's life pod failsafe.

"Good riddance, asshole!" Chara crows, and they slap their hand down.

Immediately the computer screens pinned along the machine go haywire, screaming warnings at the dead doctors to try and do something, anything, to save their beloved patient. But the warnings fall on deaf ears; you don't think you've ever seen anything more beautiful.

You stagger to your feet so that you can turn around and watch Billy writhe in place, and you find your own sympathy for the boy dissipating. You know that he was innocent when administered, and that this is still an unjust crime.

But killing him seems like such a metaphorical milestone. You can't make room for pity.

A giant pool of blood begins to flow freely from somewhere behind Billy, in between the dysfunctional wiring attaching his body to life. It swirls through the bubble as though gravity had been sucked out of Billy's miniature prison.

He continues to contort in seeming misery, and you decide that there's no better time to record it.

Backing up to where Chara is, you bring your recorder up to where you can display the death of Hope for the world to see.

The victory is short-lived.

As Billy drowns in his own blood, there's a smash upside your skull that reels you into the pod, and Chara gives a scream as you hear a crack from somewhere in your body.

You're violently twisted back around to view your captor as the Walrider again, and as suspected he's not very happy.

His features are non corporeal, otherworldly, and the fact that he can slam you around just like he did with Walker is none too reassuring.

You forget all sarcastic remarks about your situation the minute you're smacked headfirst into a wall. Your left ear begins to sing and you hear static _static_ nothing but static and maybe a scream from somewhere.

The world merges into an awful projection of blue and grey and everything in-between as you tumble to the floor, coughing blood from some opening in your body somewhere. You're not sure where.

He stops.

You take this time to breath one, two, three, four. Exhale. One, two...

_No use._

Hyperventilating, your head scraped raw yet feeling as full as an overfilled balloon, you're able to reach for your camcorder that happened to fall from your pocket and thank god it's okay.

There's someone crying and screaming, and when you remember who the voice belongs to you attempt immediately to pick yourself back up, ignoring the screams of your bones and body.

"Char—"

When you look up the Walrider is towering above you, reaching for you and you let out a shriek as he drags you back into the air, splitting you from the world and everything else that could ever represent safety.

Fear is almost an antonym at this point.

He flings you back to where Billy's squirming corpse floats in the pod, and there's another wail as you pass a small, crumpled body on the floor. They reach for you and you attempt to reach back but—

The Walrider grabs you by the shoulders again, and you just want this to be the last time _you can't do this again_ and then he disappears and for the smallest second you think that—

You were wrong.

Dragged by your legs you flail with terror and scrabble for anything that could serve as an anchor, but there's nothing there's _nothing nothing nothing_ —

You spot them reaching for you before their mouth widens to help their helpless screams escape their throat.

Swinging, dangling, flying above the wreckage below, the Walrider stares at you intently, glares, dissects you until you just want him to let you die already why isn't he letting you die?

_Is it over now?_

**_No._**

He sears himself into your body and you scream like there's no tomorrow. You scream as the Engine's projections of butterflies and blood burn into your brain and they _never stop._ You scream as the Walrider merges with your pain and agony and everything that makes up yourself as a whole and somehow connects and rebuilds and makes you something new and ugly and terrifying.

It's like being ripped apart from the inside out.

Screaming does nothing but you're not even sure if that's you anymore that's screaming. You feel like there's this new sensation, this new you, and it's awful. Every second of this is awful awful _awful awful awful_ **awful** —!

The veil of torture subsides like air and you're falling, alone, alone—

You shriek, wail, scream, whatever you want to call it as you hit the floor, merging with the earth again and the last whispers of the Walrider peel away into nothing.

Everything is like an ache, swollen and bloody. And broken. Very, very broken. You don't know why you're alive. _Why are you alive_ you need to be _dead you need to die_ —

There's a sob.

It's faint at first, since your eardrums are echoing harshly and making you listen to the frantic thrumming of your heartbeat first. It's recognizable and it strikes you immediately.

You surge upward to reach the source of the sob, but the movement promotes a sharp gasp at the white-hot pain that your torso and chest and everything in between feels. It's as though the inside of your body is wriggling ferociously, like there's some new layer of pain that you've just discovered and it's reaching into the darkest corners possible to find it.

Your cheeks stained with tears, mingling with blood, you manage to see through your blurry, vision that someone small is reaching for you.

They're in the distance, but they can't walk. _Why don't they walk to you?_

Then you notice their adjacent leg.

Their leg.

Their _broken_ leg.

"Kid..."

You reach out feebly, eyeing the bright blood on your jacket sleeve and the remains of Chara's bandage on your hands fade away into scraps of fabric, exposing bone.

They grab hold so tightly that you cringe at the touch when they squeeze your fingertips close together, draining the blood right out of them.

You've seen Chara sob before. You've never seen them cry like this, though.

Their voice is gone now, you're assuming. But their face is so red from crying that their cheeks looks like they've been burned, and the tears continue to spill from their eyes when they bring your limp arm to their face and grip it tightly with both hands.

"I..." they try, and then their body heaves with a sob. It breaks your heart.

"I didn't want..." they weep into their shirt sleeve to soak up their snot. "I didn't want this. I didn't want..."

They stop.

You release their grip and you force yourself, despite your screaming body, to be able to prop yourself up on one elbow. It's tremendous effort for your ribs, but at least Chara looks a little less hopeless now.

"Hey," you whisper, and you draw them to your broken chest. They curl into you, and you sit yourself up so that you're able to wrap your arms tightly around their smaller figure.

"I didn't know—I—I didn't know how to stop him...I—" Chara gives a sharp gasp for air as they cry again.

You can't rock them anymore, since you're so worn and pained that moving even an inch might make you pass out. You can barely focus on anything outside of the bubbles of white and red that mix with your vision in the tendrils of your eyelids.

You blink and you swear to god you see something.

"I'm okay," you lie, and it's a very blatant lie, but Chara deserves this. They deserve to believe that, even for a second, you're going to be okay.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

"I saw what he did and—"

"Shhhhhhhh. It's okay. It's okay."

"I'm so sorry."

"I know, I know. It's okay."

"Stop saying that. Please."

"We're alive." You squeeze them gently. "That's what matters."

Then you feel something sharp and metallic sting your torso, and you have to slowly look down to pull apart from Chara and see that they have something in their hands.

Your camcorder.

They give a sniff and wipe their face. "It's a...it's a really good model," they attempt to tease you, but when they attempt a laugh they cut it short so that they don't start crying again. Their smile sticks around for another second before it dissolves too.

They've gone through so much, is all you can think about. Their shoulder, their neck, their leg...

They're just a kid.

They're just a _fucking_ kid.

You solved nothing. You didn't fix anything about their situation. If anything, you made things worse. If you hadn't guided them in wrong areas, they would still have a fairly stable condition. Chara didn't deserve to rot in here.

Nobody deserves to rot in this god-awful place.

That's why you need to get out.

_Get out._

The phrase vibrates in your skull like a choir singing, providing new inspiration for your legs to get moving again, however sore they may be.

You haul yourself to your knees and Chara watches you with weary surprise when you lift them back into your arms, just like before in bridal style. They're holding your camcorder tightly to their chest, like they're afraid to let go of it for a second or else it would explode.

Hobbling forward is an effort. Especially when you're carrying a child on your arms and making sure you don't drop them. But your vision is blurring like crazy and it morphs into the streams of reality. You're not even sure where you are or what you're doing.

_Start simple._

Heaving breaths escalate in your bruised lungs as you attempt to climb the stairs, but wobble immediately upon the first steps.

There's a small whine of pain from the kid as they stumble in your hold, and you have to absorb some wit again as you prevent them from falling at a bad angle.

When you trip, there's a dull whiplash that echoes in your eardrums, with a vile whispering from somewhere in the building that has happened to bounce around the inside of your torn-up skull.

It takes you a second to trace the source of the sound back to your own head.

"Miles," Chara whimpers, stutters of a sniff, then again; "Miles, please put me down. Please. I can...I'll just limp, okay?"

You take a moment to respond. "No," you waver, and your stomach heaves as you speak, with the last remnants of a breath leaving your body at using your voice.

"Please!" they beg, but you're already treading back up the steps with a heavy limp, tightening your grip on their body as best as you're able.

_Get out._

Another whispering stalls your actions up the stairway, blurring your vision and causing nasty images from the Engine to rip through your closed cornea as you give a hiss through your teeth.

"I can't stand to see you like this," Chara sobs, and when they attempt to detach themselves you have to keep trudging forward to prevent them from doing so.

"No."

_Get out._

"Miles, put me down! I saw what that thing did to you. I don't want to be a burden!"

_Get out._

You stagger into the entrance of the laboratory, where you'd formerly entered to meet Billy for the first time. With all the computers monitoring a patient that is now dead.

He's dead. Billy Hope is dead.

The Walrider, the Swarm, whatever it is or was, unmade with him.

You have to lean against a doorframe momentarily before you hoist yourself back up again, all the while hearing a faint hum of Chara's protests dimming into white noise.

The static is buzzing in your ears and is occupying your current field of hearing.

Every steps aches and aches and aches some more. But you're used to it by now.

Start simple.

_One foot._

You are Miles Upshur.

_One foot in front of the other._

You are twenty-six years old.

There's a thud as you hit a sharp edge of an office desk that sends you spiraling downwards again, but you catch yourself with Chara in mind.

Their grip tightens on your neck, preventing you from tumbling back into your subverted mindscape.

"Miles," they repeat again, softer. "Please don't die."

You hoist yourself up again with a strength you had no clue you possessed.

"I won't."

Keep going. One foot in front of the other.

Your breath is heavy on your eardrums, numbing the static, as your vision blurs and bends with every move you take forward. Going somewhere, anywhere but here. You don't question the basics other than get out.

_Start simple and keep going._

You are Miles Upshur.

You are twenty-six years old.

(You fumble around a corner as you limp.)

You are an investigative reporter who came to investigate the secrets of Mount Massive Asylum.

(One foot in front of the other.)

You met a prisoner named Chara, who helped you along the way.

(Keep going. You're almost there.)

You've been shoved through windows and walls, you have lost two of your fingers, you were attacked by the dying Swarm of the Walrider.

But it's not long now.

(You trip and fall again. The buzzing is like spiders in your skin.)

_You should be smiling._

(Almost there.)

Aren't you excited?

Aren't you happy?

(The door is right there, and with the purest form of self-inflicted determination, you barrel forward with all your might.)

_You're going to be free._

When you barely reach the door you fall again, and the whispers and static and buzzing all merge into a terrible noise that is muted in the back of your brain, making you wince aloud.

Chara fumbles as you get on one knee to prevent them from getting any more hurt than they already are.

"Miles, it's okay," they reassure you, sadly, softly. "Please, we're almost there."

You don't respond, you're too busy focusing on your breathing pattern of one, two, three, four.

"I believe in you. I promise."

Exhale. One, two, three, four.

"Please, just...please don't die because of me. We...we had a deal, remember?" They sniffle and their voice becomes high-pitched with a cracking sob.

_The buzzing won't stop._

You try again, with harder steps in order to attempt to reach your destination, but.

This time, you fall face forward, and immediately you feel as though you've fallen on a bed of unforgiving needles. Your punctured organs are probably a lost cause at this point.

Chara slips onto their side and gives a short cry of pain as you immediately taking them to the side of you to prevent them from getting crushed under your weight. They crumple into themselves and give a little sniff again, and it has you bolting back upright, despite the constant compression of your limbs and bones.

You're right there.

You're _right there._

You pick up the kid again, giving a mumbled apology that you're not sure that they even heard, and lurch towards the door.

Get out. It's right there. _Keep going._

And then the door opens to Wernicke, waiting for you on the other side.

There's a band of soldiers, armed with giant guns. The only weapon you've seen that's still operating in this place.

They're aiming for your chest.

Chara gives a sharp gasp, despite their own abridged breathing, and it's what reels you forward into action.

You don't ask for surrender. They won't give you that.

All that's left to do is _run._

You attempt to turn away with a well-timed whisper of "Shit", just as the first bullet pierces into your shoulder.

It's like the world becomes a sluggish, blurry reality that you're no longer attached to. There's a sharp sensation of this new pain that's stinging your shoulder, and your arms are heavy with a child burrowed safely into your hold, and your fingers are gone, and there's something bad inhabiting your bones that makes you magnetized to the sound of static.

The moment plummets back into the present immediately as a storm of bullets spray onto your back, making you scream at the intensity of the sharp pinpricks that continue to dig deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and

You fall.

Chara is screaming too, you think. You don't know how hurt they were by the bullets but all you could see and feel was hot lead meeting flesh.

There's no pain. There's no scream as you both spill onto the floor, covered in your own blood.

"Gott in Himmel," you hear Wernicke breathe, sounding awed and frightened.

All you can feel is this being, this new form, bursting into the tendrils of your eyelids and morphing into an awful, horrific being that you feel like you've seen before.

There is no warning.

There is only a bleak image, as the world spun into darkness, of a small body right beside yours. Their rusty-brown hair flowing over their face.

_"You have become the Host!"_

There is static. There are screams and bullets and shadows.

And then

**N o t h i n g.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END! (sorta)
> 
> I mean the next (and last) chapter is basically a small epilogue so yeah!
> 
> Again, I CANNOT thank people enough for giving this little story a chance!! I put a lot of love into it and I was cautious and aware about how dumb and unlikely this was. I really really really appreciate it
> 
> (P.S. congrats to anyone who saw any allusions I made to Undertale's dialogue in this chapter lmaoooo)


	14. ???????????????????

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 0͘͢1͢0͟͢͠0́10̸0̸͝1͠͡ ̡̨̡0̡̛͢0̨1̀͘0͢0͝͠0̢0̵͘0͝ ͟0͜҉1̸̶͠1́̀͡0͏͠0̢͘͝0͘01̶͞ 0͢1҉1͜҉0̢1͏1͡0̸̛1̨́ ̵0̷0̀1̀͘0̢̕͟0̸̡000̡ ̀01͝1̕҉0̛͞͠0̨00̶̨̡1͢ ̡̀00͏1͏0͝҉0̨0̡̨00 ̛͏͡01̕͢͜1̨͜0̕͏͘0̧1̕͟͜11͟ 0̴҉̡11̢̨͘0҉1̸̛͝1̡́1̡͢1͠͡ ̛͡0̛1͢1̶̀͟0͝01̧͘0̴͟0 ͏͜00̶͟1̶͢0̛͘͡0̨͘0̶͢0́͢͞0͘͝ ̕0̨̕1͞1̷0҉̕0̡̀͘0̡͞0̴͞1̴̀ ̸̀͞0̀1̵10̡1҉͟1̵1͏0 ̨͡0̴҉1̛͞1͏̷0̷͡0͝͏̡1̀͘00̡̕͡ ̵̢0̢̕0͏̧1͏̛0̀0̴0҉0́́0̷͟ 0̨1͢0́̕͠0͡1͝0̀͠01͠͝ 0̡́0͜1̴͡0̨0̵̷͠0̴̴00̴̸̕ ̕͠01̵͟1̴̵͠1̷0̕͞1̢̡1̶̨́1 0̧͠1̵͡͏1́0͟1͝0̵͟0́1͜ ͞0͟1̕͞10̴͞1̡͘͝1̢0͢0͞ ̛́͜0̸͜1̶͏1̵̀0̵1͟҉͝10̴0́́ ̨00̧̀͡1͠͡0͞0̀͟0̡͝0̀0͘ 0͟1͏1͝0̨͢͡1̴110 ̨͝0̛1̶͠101̴̛1͝҉1̴̛͜1̸̀͏ ͡0͝1҉͏҉1̷̡͡1̵̷0́͢1͏0͟͞0̀͡͝ ̧̛0̴010̕0͏̶0̷͢0̴̡͝0 ͜0͢͠1͏͝1̵̛0̨͘1͘1͜0̵͞0 ̵͟0̷͟1̴͞1̢͟0҉0̷̷1̶̛͡0̵1͏͢ 0̶͟1͞1̀1̴01҉00͘҉̵ ̕0͠0͏̡͡1͡0̨͝0̨0̵͞0̛͟0͠͞ 0̧҉1̛͢1̸̢͘1̨0͟͡1҉̴̴0͞͡1̴ ̶0̷͠1͠1͟1͞0͘0͘1̧1 0̀͜0͏̧1͠0͠0̢͟͝0͞0̧̛0̨ 0̛͏͠11͞00̨1̛0̡0́͢ ̶0̡͡1̛101̨͟҉0̸͜0̶1͞ ̴0̛́͠1҉̵͘1͢0̶̴̨0̢͡1̡0̶1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hosting the Walrider sucks
> 
> (Btw if the page is a little wonky let the record show that while Zalgo Text Generator makes the story Edgy™, it's poison for editing on your phone)

**_It h u r t s_ **

It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it **hurts**

It won't s t o p h u r t i n g

Bad bad bullets _hurts_ B a D

̜̗̱̝͖͍B̡̯a̱̟d̵̰̖̫̪

Festering

_Building_

**Digging** into your system until you are

 

O̴̲̼̳̜͢  
̶̛͚͓  
̖̻̫͠N҉̹̲͓̬̞̝̗̻̘͟  
̶̣̜̭̼́  
̢̤̟̟̣̘̱̭͍͘͜E͙̭̱̬̟͉̻̗͙

 

There is a **hum**

A chorͪͬ̽̔uͨͪ̀̾͊s͐̓̋͗ͤ̊

Flowing through your veins that are dark and festering and **a̸ ̀͟w̕͟͠ ̕͢͞f̸̡ ̛͢u̕̕̕ l̷**

Fill your lungs and brain with h a t e

W ͝i̕ ͞ ̧ t ̨ h͠ ̶ p͘ ҉ o͝ ̸ ͢ ̡ ̵w̷ e ̡ ̛ ͘r̡

And you ask, _What are you?_

And there is an answer.

**I am God.**

And you are a god too?

Ņ̷̼̯̻͙̕͝ͅ ̪̺͓̱̠̞̗̖͎́ ͢͏͕̮̼̺̮͚̘̜́͘ ̴̫̮̯͈͓̖̣̻͉̗͠͝͡͞ ̵̙̩͍͕̰͈̭͎̀ͅÓ̧͏̶̡̘͇̥̥  
̵͔̩͖͖͇̩̦͉̮̱̥̀

But it won't

stop

 

S͌͒͗̀͌͢͜ ̒͢͠ ͌͝͡ ͒͐ͪ̐̓ͮ͏̷c̵͂̏ ̶̽̎ͧ̌ ̧́̎ ̴ͫ̊ͮͬͭ̾͐̒̀ ͛̀̔̎̒ͪ̄̓͡rͥ͛͌͆̊̚͘ ̓ ̴̨́ͣ̃̚͘ ̧͛͒̓͗ͧ̌̈́́e̢̛͛ͦ̋ͭͨͬͫͦ ̷ͣͯͣͤͤ͂ͩ̀ ͆̐̊͏ ̸̂̏ͧ̾̂̚͢͢å̵̾͡ ̅̓ͧ̉͌̀̌̾͠ ̓̐̿ͭͩ͂́͝ ̢ͪͧ̿̿ͨͬ͐͛̕͡ ͂̌̉ͨͥ͟m̒̾ͨ҉̷ ̈͌ͮ͑͗͐͝ ̡̃ ̸̃̇̀́҉ ̢̏̿̇̿͏̴ ̡͊̇̏̌̇͟ỉ̓̒̑̓̒̈́ͮ͢͡ ̈́̌̈́̓̊̽͌̓҉ ̷̊̅͠ ̈̂ͤ͛ͩ̑̏҉̢n̡̢̂̆̇͆̊̉ ̛̽ ͗͊ͬ̃́̕ ̵̵̢͑̄͊ͩͧͬ̆̽g͒ͬ͌ͨ͂ͦ͋̓

 

-

Butterflies and stitches. Surgery and ecstasy. All merge into one being and are impossible and **unbearable** and you are a new form of existence

You are **new**

_____________ are you listening?_

 

**H̀os͢t͘**

_01001100 01101001 01110011 01110100 01100101 01101110 00101110 00100000 01010111 01100101 00100000 01101101 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01100101 01110011 01100011 01100001 01110000 01100101_

H o w?

**They are d̎͆ͯ̾ͬ̃̃͟e̕a̧͑̈̎͐͗͋d́ͣ̈́.**

Blood on your fingers. On the walls. On your chest. Oozing. Puddles of it. Not yours not yours _not yours_

You want to d͔͕̯͚͇͕̹͞i͔͇e̼̣̮̼ ̨̘͙͖̗̻a͏͎̰n͎̠̜̪̣ͅd ̧̗̣k̷̘̤̙͕̲̻ͅ ͓̘̕ ̥̲̺̩ ̼̫͈̣͎i̘͓͉̗͘ ̭ ̦̩̕ ̦̯̞̫̬̻́ ̹͚̠̻͙͘ͅl̨̦̤ ̜͘ͅ ̬̮̮̺͜ ͟ ̙͝l

_Billy?_

 

 _No_ not **Billy**

No _not_ b_lly

Not B____

There is no ____

 

**Look around and you will get out Host. We will in̵dulg̷e͠ Host. We are free.**

_Free_

F̛͡ ̵̸ ́ ̧ ̕͡ r ̕͞ ̵ ̴ ͏ ̵͝ ̴̡ ҉̶è̸ ̡͞ ͜͠ ̴͟ ́ ͠é̶̢

F

R

E

E

It is a word. A syllable. There is no definition of free because there is something new tugging at your bones and it was never you. This is **not yours**

It gets up

It floats

And you want to **follow** it

 

You follow the g҉ho̵st

 

And you want to leave but

But

 

But

 

B̍͑͊̄̒ù̈̀̎ẗ͐ͫ̓̎́

-

-

 

Rusty-brown.

On the floor. Shot. Bloody. Like the rest.

 

And you want to leave but there is a 

**T u g g i n g**

Small.

**Small.**

_Broken._

Bruised.

Syrupy hatred, artificial anger, stir in organs that are not yours.

Tar covers your brain but you

W̛̛òn̨̕͘͟͡'͏͞t̀̀  
̧̛́͘  
̧̀͠L̴̨͝͠e̶̵̛a̴̸̡͞͝v̶̷͘͘͟è̵́͜

 

You will not let it die

Do not let it die

_Do not let it die_

**Do not let it die**

_Stop it!_ it yells. Sc͢réam͠s̵.͢ ̶ S ͜ ͟ i̴ ̀ n̶ ́ ̕g ̸ s̨

 

_No!_

_Let us leave. We are free_

**_N o_ **

It is dying dying dying not dead please not dead it is dying

Rusty-brown hair.

Small body.

Bleeding.

01001100 01100101 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110100 00101110 00100000 01001001 01110100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01100001 01110011 00100000 01100111 01101111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01100001 01110011 00100000 01100100 01100101 01100001 01100100 

No no **no** no no no **no** no

Bandages on your fingers l o o s e n

But your b o d y s t i n g s

_____, we must get going._

**Host, we must go.**

Sharp tug.

**S h a r p**

But you reach.

Reach for _something_

Grab s O m. E. T. h i n g

You reach and you grab it.

Soft and alive.

Alive and dying.

Dying.

 

D̤̗̦̮̱̬͓̗͍̘̗́̕͞ỵ̱̤̪̀͞ị̖̱͓͟͡ͅn̫̜̞͚̼͈̠̦͓̳̩̝̙͈͚͔͉̝͎͠g҉҉̞̠̘̭͙̘̜̦̙̖̬̜̘

You will not let it die.

It will **not** die.

_Not die._

**Don't die.**

 

-

 

-

Cradling a body

Small

Rusty-brown hair.

 

And you are à̵̢ ̸́ ̴͢͞n̵ ͘ ͞g̢̛ ҉̛ ͞ ̶̢r̴̶ ͢ỳ̨̛

The world is grey and _screaming_

A man is dead

Two men

Three

Seven

Twenty

T ̴o o ͢ ͟ ͢ ͢ m ͢a ̷ n͏ ̸y t ò ͘c ̸o̴ u ̷ n t

_You did this._

**_We did this._ **

_And why will you not kill it?_ it presses, confused, apathetic, furious, baffled, blank, buzzing.

 

It will not die

It will **not die**

_It will not die_

Ȋ̡ͦ̒͐t̨͋ͬ̿ ͑̊̎̑̀ͧ͡ŵͮ͆̍ͯ͜i̛ͨ͊́̿ͭ͒̉l̉l͐̽̄̉ͫ͑ ͥ̂͂͂n̸̐ͭö̧̐tͭͪ͗̀ ͢d̔͑î̚͠e

 

Too much

B

L

O

O

D

Swarms are calling, buzzing **buzzing** holding you holding the body

Head lolled

Eyes closed

B̡̮̪͡ͅ ̮͈̻̖̭̖̗̦̱́͜ ͏͖̻͎͍͖͝ļ̛̗̰̝̺͡ ̨̱͙͙̪̘̜̦́͝ ͙͕̜̲͕ ̢̝̥̫͍̗͇ę̮̮̮̩͖́͡ ̞͎̬̘ ̵̣͓̘͍̘̮è͚̩̮ ͈̻̪͖͖͔d̩̣̣͡͞.̶̧̩̳̀ ̵̪͔̟̬̜̭͕̗́ ̨̛҉̤̭S̮̠͈̝̹̼̪͠͡

Let it die, it commands.

**_I am a god and I choose my victims._ **

This body will **breathe.**

B̍ͧ̑͒͊͑͋re̊̏͆͋ͫath͂ͬ͌͊ͣ͂e̊͋.

 

_Breathe._

 

_Four_

 

_Three_

**Two**

 

O

N

E

-

You walk.

Walk walk float f͜lo̷a͠t͡ run walk

Holding _it_

 

It̷ i͞s ͞n͞o͘t͏ dea͝d

 

Buzzing _buzzing_ **killing** red red red black black grey and white **black**

**0̵̵̨͢͢1͠͏̴̨̀0̶͢0͏̀͡͝҉1̡͜0̕͘͢͠͏0̴̛͠0̢̕͜͠ ͘͜͟0̧͝1̡̕͡1̵̶̢͟͟0҉̵̧̛̀1́̕҉1̷̨1̕҉̕1̨̀́͘҉ ̶͢҉̡̡0҉̴͢1̀͏̴̶͘1͏̶1̕͝0̢͠0̸̶́̀̕1̷͘1̶̡ ̕͘҉͡0̷͟͟͡1̷͝҉̛́1̶̸̶̛͘1҉̷͘͢0̴̧̀͘1̛́͘͘͢0͞͏͟0́͡ ̸̧̀́**

Your bones are metal. Ash. Blood. Veins. Flies and bees humming and singing in your blood and you will not know of **suffering**

You made the **right** choice

This is what you have **deserved**

This is your **reward**

And you will g̴ ̛͝ ͘͞ ̶͝ȩ́͠ ͢ ̀͏̢ ̡̀͝ ̧̧͠t̀͡͡ ̨ ͞ ̧͘͟ Ó̕͢ ̨ ͝͏́ ̡̛ư̢̕.͘ ̨t̷̶

 

-

 

Too alive it's too alive it squirms squirms **squirms**

You are not ready not ready not ready _can't let it die_

_Host, you are mingling with decision. Make a choice before I decide **for you.**_

Please don't

No

N҉̸̡o

You can't let it die

**You can't let it die**

 

-

 

_'Count to four'_

 

 

_01000011 01101111 01110101 01101110 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101111 01101100 01100100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101_

 

 _One_ (there are bad men and they scream as you tear them from the inside. It is warm and red and **useless** )

 

 _Two_ (he wants to get out and you let him and you watch the man split open with a horrible, **horrible** scream as his sins and memories splash and c̴olli̴de with your own and it's too much too much too much t̵͝o̸͜o̶̶͘ ̡̨͝m̵ų̨c͘͘h̡̀̕--)

 _Three_ (too alive **too alive** stole something sto̶l͘e ҉s̀o͝m͘e͡th̶i̶ng̨ of yours but you will not let it die d͏̥̭̪̫̲̫o̼̲̻̯͓̤̥ ̴̘͍͝n̻̙̘̦͕̗͕̲ͅo̵̵̺͈̲͇̹͖̯̹t̫͙ ͍̪̮̰̺͍̙͘͢͞ͅḷ̸͇̰̝͎͚ͅe̶̹͙͇͚t̜̫̙̰̳̕͢͝ͅ ̷̨͏̦̘i̵͍͖̗̪͉̯̥͕͔͞͝t̡̥̤̹̜̘ ̲͚̰̹d͓̳̮̭̳͉̣̜i̢̤͖̖͔̯̯e͙̜̞̫̲͙̘)

 

**Four**

 

Spread the gospel.

**  
S̶̸̸̛͘p̢̡͡ŗ͠e̕͏͝ą͟d̴́ ̵͠҉̡́t҉h̵̡́͞͏ȩ̴̡̕ ̀̕͡ǵ̴͘͟o̡͞s̛͡p̸̷̸͟͡e̸̷͘͢͜ļ͜.̷͢**

 

Free 

 

****

**̥̖͉̗̪̼̮͔̦̈ͧ͐ͤ̂̅ͬ̊F̵͔̪̘̯ͥ̑́͑̈́̇ͨͅ**  
ͮ̅̊͌̚̚͏̞̗́  
̵̴̧̤ͥ͛  
̧̧̛͚̼͍̍͑̏̿̉̑ͣ͆R̼̳̓̉͆ͭ͑͑ͦ͐͒̀͜  
̫̌ͬ̂ͩ͐͋̚ͅ  
̧̳̙̘̯̹͍̖̜ͦͫ̂ͮ̈̌ͯ̾͂  
͚̤̦͓̌ͣ̌͛̽̿ͩ̎͜E̲̳̳̹̼̮̔̑̒ͭ͢ͅ  
̛̟̪̣̦̥͓̣͖̌͑͊̓͐͐ͬ͝  
̵̌̃͆̐̀̂ͥ̍ͫ͏͔͍̻͚  
̷̻̙̺͚͔̺̞̜̯̀͐ͩͭͩ̒̂̽͠E̖̖͚͐͗ 

 

.

 

 

(It is a̷͟l͟i̸̡͜v̵͘͟e and you are too).

 

-

_01001001 00100111 01101101 00100000 01110011 01101111 01110010 01110010 01111001_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, NOW it's the end!!!
> 
> You all have left me so flustered and I'm just sooooo happy that people are willing to stick around and see what comes next from these two!!!! I have the story all planned out, and it's looking to be about three stories long??? As a whole?? Soooo yeah if you stuck around to see the end, you are amazing!!!
> 
>  
> 
> (Also if anyone needs clarification on what happened in this chapter basically Walrider!Miles remembered he had a promise to keep to somebody and carried a tiny body he found to safety)


End file.
